


The Beautiful Halls

by gooseberry



Series: The Kingdom [9]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Arranged Marriage, Dubious Consent, Durin Family Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Royalty, Sexual Politics, Siblings, Thorin's A+ Uncling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:30:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 66,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill for a Hobbit Kink Meme prompt: "Dwalin is supposed to be Thorin's closest friend in the film-verse, so he promised his younger nephew to Dwalin which is a huge honour etc, royal line blah blah.</p><p>It's up to you as to how Dwalin feels about it, (he gets a hot younger husband or Kili is a notorious handful?) but Kili is super excited and fangirling over Dwalin all over the place."</p><p>Kili has been engaged to Dwalin since he was a child, as a measure of protection and family solidarity. Now that the dwarves are retaking Erebor, Kili's social and political clout is growing, which means that his engagement will most likely be reevaluated and changed to better benefit Erebor. Pretty much everything falls apart.</p><p>It's all sexual politics, Durin Family Feels, dubious consent, and the question of what sex is and what constitutes virginity.</p><p>Oh, and lots of touching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kili is scraping mud from his boots when he hears Dwalin call out, “Fili! Kili! Come on, give us a hand.”

Dwalin grabs Kili’s shoulder, pulling him forward, then slings his arm around Kili’s back, his fingers gripping Kili’s shoulder. Kili is very suddenly reminded of how much bigger Dwalin always seems than him, and how warm Dwalin’s body is. He lets Dwalin lead him away from Fili, and says, maybe a little stupidly, “Mister Dwalin.” 

Then, even stupider, he laughs, awkward and happy and with his stomach turning over and over like crazy. 

He’s probably not much help moving the table, because he keeps laughing, awkward and happy, at everything Dwalin says, and he drops the table right on Fili’s foot. Fili grumbles a little and Kili feels himself flush. He feels hot and ungainly, and he really, really wishes that Dwalin would swing an arm around him again.

He’s trying to figure out how to edge a little closer to Dwalin when he hears a crash come from the front door and what has to be all the other dwarves, moaning and complaining. Fili raises his eyebrows at Kili and Kili grins back, and then Kili feels his grin go a little crazy, because Dwalin pats Kili’s back and says, “Kili, come help me find some chairs.”

Kili follows Dwalin out of the dining room and down the hallway away from the front door. Dwalin turns a corner and Kili follows him, and finds himself standing close to Dwalin, tucked into a little alcove, shoved in amongst coats and umbrellas.

“Hey, laddie,” Dwalin says lowly. “Your brother and yourself, you made it here alright. No trouble on the road?”

“None,” Kili says, and he licks his lips, feeling his stomach turn over and over and _over_ , and Mahal, but he wants to be able to kiss Dwalin. His whole body wants to kiss him, to push himself up against Dwalin’s body until there’s no space between them. He feels like a basket of nerves, all his wants and his embarrassment and a strange shyness that he’s never really known before. “Have you, uh, been here long?”

Dwalin’s mouth quirks up in a grin, like he thinks Kili’s smalltalk is as awkward as Kili does, and he reaches out, tugs a lock of Kili’s hair. “Long enough,” he says, and then he presses his thumb against Kili’s jaw, his fingers curving around Kili’s neck. 

Kili feels his body melt to liquid gold, hot and heavy and wanting. He closes his eyes and turns his head, just enough to let Dwalin’s thumb slide over his lips. The want curling in his belly is enough to combat the shyness in his chest and he opens his mouth, letting Dwalin’s thumb slide between his lips. If Thorin was here--if Thorin saw--but heat is curling in his body, strumming through his blood, and Dwalin’s fingers are petting Kili’s neck, like Dwalin wants this, too.

“Hey, Kili,” Fili calls from back down the hall, “come and help me with this ale--”

Kili opens his eyes and looks at Dwalin’s face. Dwalin’s staring right back at Kili, his smile gone and face grim, and his thumb is pressing heavily against Kili’s lower lip. Kili feels his body go even hotter than before, but now it is all shyness and embarrassment and shame. 

“I’ve got to,” Kili mumbles, and he ducks out of the alcove, stumbling down the hallway. He doesn’t dare look back, and he doesn’t dare look up, either, because he doesn’t want to know if anyone saw them, if anyone else saw how close Kili had been to--to, Aule, doing something for which Thorin would kill him.

“Kili?” Fili asks when Kili reaches him, and Kili sneaks a peek at Fili. Fili is looking at Kili closely, then he’s looking over Kili’s shoulder, and whatever Fili sees makes him glower. He grabs Kili’s arm, snaps, “Come with me,” and drags Kili through the closest door.

It turns out to be the hobbit’s bathroom, all porcelain and polished brass pipes, and Kili sinks onto the edge of a large, claw-footed tub. His legs feel like water and his head feels like it’s spinning. Mahal, but this night is getting worse and worse.

“You can’t have done anything too rash,” Fili says as he closes the door, but he’s looking at Kili like he expects Kili to prove him wrong. “You didn’t, did you, Kili?”

Kili bites his tongue and shakes his head.

“It’s not proper,” Fili pushes, “to be alone with him. And on a quest--you know everything might change, Kili.”

Kili makes an angry sound and Fili crosses the bathroom in three quick steps, crouching low so he can grab Kili’s knees. He’s looking up at Kili, so earnest and worried looking, and Kili can’t make himself look away.

“Kili,” Fili says, “Kili, if something happens to one of us, everything will change. If you do anything to change your prospects--you know that everything rests on us. If something happens to Thorin, or to me--”

That is when Kili’s patience, already worn to a thread, snaps. “Hell, Fili,” he snarls, “I know that. I know all of it. I think I know it better than _you_ ,” he punctuates by throwing Fili’s hands off his knees, “what with being promised to anyone and everyone. I _know_ , and nothing _happened_. He only asked me how the road was.”

Kili forces himself to shut his mouth before he says something stupid, like how badly he wanted to roll over like a dog, like how he wanted to drag Dwalin’s body hard against his. He breathes in angrily through his nose, clenching his eyes shut so he’s not tempted to punch his brother in the throat. 

“Kili,” Fili says softly, and Kili’s face must express just how much he wants to punch Fili, because Fili grabs Kili’s hands and holds them tightly, like that will keep Kili from tackling Fili if he gets good and angry enough.

“I only worry,” Fili says after a few moments, his voice much lighter than before, “because if Thorin sees something, he’ll likely skin Dwalin alive, and then no one will be happy.”

Kili can’t help the snort of laughter and Fili chuckles, patting Kili’s hands.

“Dwalin’s bald now,” Fili whispers wickedly, “but imagine how bald he’d be if Thorin caught him sneaking you off around corners.”

Kili ducks his head against Fili’s chest and laughs hard, blushing just as hard at the idea of Dwalin trying to sneak Kili away from under Thorin’s nose. There is something incredibly flattering about Fili’s worry, that Fili thinks Dwalin wants Kili enough to risk Thorin’s wrath. It makes Kili feel beautiful and desirable, like a proper dwarf prince, someone to be fought over and coveted.

“He wouldn’t,” Kili giggles against Fili’s chest, not even sure which dwarf he means. Fili huffs a breath against the top of Kili’s head and says, darkly, “You didn’t see his face.”

They leave the bathroom after Kili’s finally able to stop his laughter. Kili makes a point to keep at least two dwarves or a table between himself and Dwalin for the majority of the evening, and Fili gives Kili an approving look each time Kili bypasses the open seats next to Dwalin. By the end of the evening, though, he dares to lean against the table in the little front room, right next to where Dwalin’s sitting. Thorin is turned away from them, but Kili still feels ridiculously brave, especially when Dwalin catches Kili’s hand and rubs his thumb over it for a few beautiful, blissful moments.

It is late into the evening when the dwarves disperse to go to bed. Kili is exhausted, physically and mentally, and when Thorin says, “Fili, Kili, you’re sharing the spare room with me,” Kili just nods mechanically and goes to look for extra blankets and pillows to share with Fili. 

He’s taking a heavy quilt and a purloined seat cushion back to the spare bedroom when he nearly runs into Dwalin in the hallway. Kili’s too tired to feel much but the tiniest flare of excitement in his stomach. “Goodnight, Mister Dwalin,” he says, so polite it would bring his mother to tears.

Dwalin’s eyebrows go up, then Dwalin reaches out and tugs at Kili’s hair again. Kili’s throat goes suddenly dry and tight, because pulling Kili’s hair when they’re hidden away around a corner is one thing, but to touch Kili’s hair in the middle of a hallway, when anyone could walk past them-- If Fili sees them, he’s sure to have a fit, and Kili opens his mouth to tell Dwalin exactly that when he hears a throat clear from behind Dwalin.

“Kili,” Thorin’s voice says, mostly bland but a little disgruntled, “hurry up. And Dwalin, watch your hands.”

Dwalin lets go of Kili’s hair, pulling his hands back and holding them up. “He had a feather in his hair,” Dwalin says over his shoulder, and Kili is pretty sure Dwalin is lying.

“A feather,” Thorin repeats, and Kili’s even more sure that Thorin thinks Dwalin is lying, too. “Come on, Kili.”

Kili shoves past Dwalin and sidles past Thorin, then scarpers for the spare bedroom. He’s nearly there when he hears Thorin call to him, “And go to _bed_ , Kili.”

x

Kili’s been promised to Dwalin for nearly as long as he can remember. It’s always been a point of contention between Thorin and pretty much every other dwarf alive (and probably some dwarves who are dead). There have always been dwarves coming to Dis’s house, arguing that Kili should be married to Dain’s niece or to Billingr’s son or even, on one horrifying occasion, to human royality. 

When Kili is old enough to know how to sneak around the house but still young enough to be brave and stupid enough to try, he crouches outside the guest room that is always reserved for Thorin, and he listens to Thorin and his mother argue about who should be promised to whom. 

“Dwalin’s too old for him,” Dis says once when Kili is nearly fifty, hiding in the hallway, ear turned to the wall. “Kili’s too desperate to please everyone, he’ll hurt himself trying to make Dwalin care.”

Kili knows this argument by heart; it’s the most common one, rehashed and reargued every time Thorin stays at Dis’s house for longer than a week. The way Thorin sighs, though, is new.

“It’s the best way to protect him,” Thorin says, and his voice is more muffled than Dis’s. “Dwalin’s powerful, and I can think of few who would risk Balin’s anger.”

Dis says something, muffled and sharp, and Thorin says, his voice clearer, “Because he’s not very dwarvish, is he?”

Kili never remembers what his mother says, but he will never forget how his stomach turns to ice because he knows they’re talking about him. Little and delicate and practically hairless, he’ll never be much of a dwarf. He’s the fault in the rock of the family, a line that’s splintering them all apart.

He slinks away from the door as his mother roars at Thorin. He doesn’t want to hear his mother’s protective fury or Thorin’s reasonable explanations. He doesn’t even want to hear his own thoughts.

x

The first few days on the road are a test on Kili’s self-control. Whenever he rides far enough ahead that he’s riding abreast with Dwalin, Dwalin looks at him, nods politely, then pointedly ignores Kili. The one time Kili cuts his way to the front of the line, daring to ride just behind Thorin, Thorin gives Kili an empty stare, like he can’t even comprehend the idea that Kili would try to ride next to him. Kili turns his pony away, slinking back down the line until he’s riding beside Fili again.

“You’re a little obvious,” Fili says, and Kili scowls at the passing countryside. The days are too beautiful to meet his rising temper. He almost wishes it was raining, just so everyone else could feel as uncomfortable and wretched as he feels.

Or at least, as uncomfortable and wretched as he feels for the whole ten minutes he bothers to feel uncomfortable and wretched. The days are too beautiful to really stay upset and beside, Bofur knows stories that would probably make even Thorin blush, and if Fili and Kili ride at the very back of the line, where Thorin can’t hear, Bofur is willing to tell them all the stories he knows. By the time they’ve reached the town of Bree, Kili knows more about the world than he thinks he ever wanted to know.

If Thorin is increasingly hands-off during the daily travel, he more than makes up for it each time the company stops. “Fili, Kili,” he always calls first, “look after the ponies.” “Fetch the water.” “Find some firewood.” “Take the first watch.”

And Aule knows, Kili loves his brother more than his mother, uncle, and the rest of the world combined, but Fili can make Kili angrier than anyone else in the world, too. 

“Get _away_ from me,” Kili snaps when Fili stands far too close. They’re supposed to be fetching water but everything about Fili is just about to drive Kili mad. Kili wants to _hit_ him as hard as he can, make Fili bleed, because Fili is always right _there_. “I can get the water by myself, I don’t need your help.”

Fili rolls his eyes the same way Thorin does, which really just serves to make Kili angrier. “Thorin said,” Fili says far too reasonably, and Kili thinks he is probably perfectly justified in tackling Fili to the ground and getting in a good punch.

“Thorin says, Thorin says,” Kili mimics when Fili is sitting on Kili’s back and pushing Kili’s face into the mud. The mud sinks in through Kili’s teeth and Kili chokes on it, trying to spit it out and push Fili off his back. Fili finally crawls off Kili’s back, falling back onto his arse and watching as Kili flings himself over onto his back.

“Why are you such a brat?” Fili asks. He sounds angry and that makes the backs of Kili’s eyes burn.

“I’m not,” he says into the curve of his elbow, his face turned away from Fili. Fili grabs Kili’s arm and Kili pushes him off roughly, yells, “Just leave _off_ , Fili!”

He doesn’t cry because his tears were burnt out of him years ago, but he does curl his face into his arms, twisting his body up tight until he feels like he could cry. He doesn’t know why he feels so--so much. Too much. Not enough a dwarf, always crying over the little things. When Fili scoots up close behind him, rubbing his shoulders, Kili turns his head just enough that he can press his forehead against Fili’s shin.

“Are you homesick?” Fili asks.

“No,” Kili lies, and regrets it instantly. It doesn’t matter, though, because Fili says, 

“I am. I miss Mother, and the house, and the forge, and food that wasn’t cooked by Bombur.”

Kili snickers a little because Fili’s honesty is always a little cruel. There is a rock jabbing into his hip, so he sighs and says, “I miss my bed.”

He rolls over after a few minutes, spreads his body out, trying to catch the sunlight on his fingertips. Fili’s still sitting next to him, braiding leaves of grass, patiently waiting for Kili to get up. Kili squints up against the sun, searching Fili’s face, and says, “Your mouth is bleeding.”

Fili frowns, touches his mouth gingerly, then says, “Well, your clothes are covered in mud. Thorin’s going to kill you.”

They fill the waterskins, then try to get the mud and blood out of their clothes and hair. Fili’s lip won’t stop bleeding, however sluggishly, and Kili feels a little more guilty each time he sees Fili lick the blood away.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters when they’re almost back at the camp, because he promised his mother he’d try this whole being-an-adult thing, and apologizing for punching his brother in the face is probably the adult thing. Well, even he will admit that not punching his brother would’ve been a more adult thing to do, but you can’t mend a broken stone.

Fili looks surprised then pleased, and he says, “Apology accepted. I’m sorry for shoving mud down your throat.”

The instant Thorin sees Kili, wet and muddy, his head whips around like a snake as he looks for Dwalin, and Thorin is so _obvious_ about it that it makes Kili feel embarrassed for himself, for Dwalin, and for Thorin, too. That doesn’t stop him from also looking over the camp to find Dwalin, though. When he does catch sight of Dwalin, it makes his stomach do that sickening flip-flop because Dwalin is staring straight at Kili. It’s more attention that Kili’s gotten from him in days, and it makes Kili feel victorious and dizzy.

“What were you doing?” Thorin snaps, apparently assured that Kili’s virtue wasn’t impugned by Dwalin, who is distinctly dry and unmuddied. Thorin’s marching on Kili and Fili like an invading army and Kili takes a half-step back, letting his shoulder press up against Fili’s chest. Safety in numbers and in keeping his back to a wall--he’s learned well.

“I tripped,” Fili lies, and his lie is as obvious as Thorin’s paranoia. Kili wants to sink into the ground. “Into the river,” Fili adds after a moment, when Thorin’s face has become incredibly thunderous.

“I helped him out?” Kili hedges cautiously, and as soon as he says it he’s aware of the way it sounds more like a question than anything. Thorin’s eyes snap from Fili to Kili and Kili blanches, mutters, “It wasn’t my fault.”

Thorin’s tongue-lashings are brutal things. By the time Thorin has grown tired of scolding them, Kili is feeling smaller than he has in years and he is certain that Thorin’s going to send them back to the Blue Mountains as soon as morning comes. If the way Fili is avoiding everyone’s eyes is any type of hint, Fili must feel the same. Kili’s wounded pride stings and he almost wants to leave and go back to the Blue Mountain right now, but he’s certain that will be worse. He settles for sitting at the very edge of the camp, as far away from the fire as he can possibly get without Thorin coming to scold him for uselessly endangering himself. Fili sits on the far side of the camp, and that hurts even more than Thorin’s scolding; Kili cannot help but sulk as the sun goes down.

Bofur brings him a bowl of stew, which Kili forces himself to eat. The stew grows cold too quickly and settles uneasily in his stomach, and Kili is grateful when the bowl is empty. He’s holding the bowl in his hands, wondering if he can get it back to Bofur without crossing Thorin’s line of sight, when Dwalin sinks to the ground next to him.

The pain from Thorin’s tongue-lashing builds up in Kili’s heart all over again, and he cannot look away from his bowl. He feels utterly humiliated, childish and stupid and worth so very little, and he doesn’t want Dwalin to see how horrible he feels.

“He’ll forget his anger by morning, laddie,” Dwalin rumbles next to him. Dwalin is sitting very close to him, close enough that Dwalin’s knee is pressed against Kili’s thigh. 

Kili closes his eyes and swallows, fighting down his hurt pride and twisting stomach.

“Though,” Dwalin says after a pause, when Kili still hasn’t said a word, “it might be wise to stay on his better side.”

“Yeah,” Kili breathes; Dwalin claps him on the shoulder, then turns a little, saying,

“Go on, hold out your hand.”

Kili does so hesitantly. If it was Fili or Bofur, he would refuse, because they’d probably try to hand off something that’d get him into further trouble with Thorin. Kili’s not sure what to expect from Dwalin, though, and so he jerks in surprise when Dwalin grabs his hand. Dwalin chuckles, like the deep rumble of rocks crashing, and says, “Easy, boy.”

Kili makes an effort to loosen his muscles, to let his hand rest in Dwalin’s. Dwalin’s still wearing his knuckledusters, and when he turns Kili’s hand over, the metal curving over Dwalin’s fingers pinches at Kili’s skin.

“Here, then,” Dwalin says, and he lays something soft and light into Kili’s palm. Kili hesitates again, not sure what to do, and when Dwalin pulls his hands away, Kili leans back. He holds the something up, turns it between his fingers.

“Bread?” he asks, and he can see Dwalin nod in the flickering light of the fire.

“From Bree,” Dwalin says. “The last bit of the bread. Wasn’t much left, and Balin snatched most of it. I got this bit off him.”

“Oh,” Kili says, suddenly breathless, and he will (under great duress) admit that even he thinks he sounds like a dwarf lass. “Thank you,” he adds. He tears the bread in half and holds the slightly smaller half back towards Dwalin. 

“Nah,” Dwalin says easily, and he’s fiddling with his pockets. For a moment, Kili wonders what else Dwalin has, and if it is also for Kili, because he loves presents, and presents from Dwalin might be better than any other presents. “I got that for you, lad.”

“Oh.” Kili swallows the awkward giggle he can feel rising in his throat, and takes a bite of the bread. It’s still mostly fresh, and sweet, and he thinks, insanely, that it might taste better for being from Dwalin. Then he thinks about how _stupid_ that is, and he blushes so hard he feels dizzy with it. He takes another bite of bread, turning his face away so hopefully Dwalin won’t see how stupid he is being.

He’s eaten half of the bread and is trying to decide if he should offer the other half to Fili (or maybe even Thorin) as a peace offering when Dwalin asks, “Did you throw Fili into the river?”

“What?” Kili turns to stare at Dwalin, and sees that Dwalin is staring right back at him. Dwalin’s smoking his pipe, and the embers from chamber light the end of Dwalin’s nose and the crag of his eyebrows. “No, I--I punched him.”

Dwalin does that laugh of his, the one where he drags out each chuckle until it sounds like he’s humming, and Kili can’t help but smile back.

“Pity,” Dwalin says after a while. “I’ve always wanted to throw Balin into a river.”

Kili shoves the last half of the bread into his mouth to hide his laughter, then shoves his fists against his mouth, choking and chuckling as he bends over his knees. Dwalin’s humming laugh turns into a guffaw, and he slaps Kili on the shoulder as he laughs, says, “But punching him, that’s something I did often.”

They go quiet again, but it’s not as awkward and horrible as it was before. Kili can’t think of anything important to say, but his hands feel less sweaty and his stomach is no longer rolling. He’s starting to think that he’s got a handle on this whole thing when Dwalin reaches over and touches Kili’s hair again, tugging it free from where it’s tucked behind Kili’s ear. 

Kili feels like a rabbit, frozen and frightened, and he can barely watch as Dwalin curls the lock of Kili’s hair over his finger, then leans close enough to press his mouth over the dark shine of Kili’s hair wrapped around Dwalin’s knuckle. Kili’s heart is thudding madly, beating through his chest and up into his throat. His fingers have gone cold and numb and he can feel his very bones trembling. The molten gold of want is curling over in his stomach again, twisting through his veins, and he is still for a long moment before he breaks.

He grabs at Dwalin’s hand, fumbling and ungainly, and presses his mouth over Dwalin’s fingers. He can feel his own hair catch on his lip, and Dwalin’s knuckle slips into Kili’s mouth. He can taste salt and skin and the metallic ring of Dwalin’s knucklebusters. It feels like something is singing and screaming in the back of Kili’s head. 

“Please,” Kili groans around Dwalin’s fingers, and he feels the tip of his tongue touch metal and knuckle. “ _Please_ \--”

Dwalin grabs Kili’s head with his other hand, holding it tight, and Kili wants to twist inside Dwalin’s hands, wants to skim up against him, wet and slick like a minnow. Kili’s hair gets caught in Dwalin’s knuckledusters, pinching his scalp, and it feels like bees are stinging Kili’s body all over. He’s panting against Dwalin’s fingers, hot and embarrassed and not caring, and he would follow Dwalin off the edge of a cliff if Dwalin asked him to.

“Sleep close to the fire tonight,” Dwalin says, and he squeezes his grip on Kili’s head, his thumb curving tightly under Kili’s ear. Kili can’t stop the shudder that wracks his body. “It will make Thorin happy.”

Kili opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a gasping breath. Dwalin’s hand moves, his knuckle pressing against the corner of Kili’s mouth, and then Dwalin is pulling away from Kili, extracting himself so quietly and carefully that Kili can still feel the phantom weight of him. Kili doesn’t watch him go, because he’s sure that if he does, he’ll try to follow Dwalin. Instead, he tucks his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around his shins, willing the molten gold and bee stung heat of his body to fade away.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s in a bad mood when he wakes up. His feet are cold and his face is sore from where Fili shoved his head into the mud, his clothes are still dirty and damp, and hell, but Kili really, really misses his bed. He only gets up most grudgingly, grumbling whenever anyone comes close enough to be within arm’s distance. The rest of the company gets the point rather quickly, and by the time Kili has rolled up his bedroll, the vicinity around him is pointedly empty. He eats while standing beside the fire, then goes to help Fili ready the ponies.

Fili is saddling one of the brown ponies. Kili thinks it might be Bungo, but he’s not sure. He grabs another saddle and blanket, throwing it over the back of another pony, and begins wrestling with the straps. When the pony sucks in a huge gasp of air (and he’s sure that this one is Caramel, because Caramel is the one who always tries to suck in all the air she can so her girth strap will stay loose), Kili leans his shoulder against the pony’s side and waits until the pony lets the air go in a wheeze. He yanks the girth, pulls it tight, then wraps it in a flat knot, tucking the end smooth against the pony’s long coat.

“You handle them well,” Thorin says, which of course is when Kili’s fingers fumble, dropping the breast collar. The pony snorts and sidesteps and Kili curses softly, grabbing at the breast collar and its buckle.

“Thank you,” he says after a moment, when he checks over his shoulder and sees Thorin still standing there. Kili checks the looseness of the breast collar with the width of his fingers, then adds, “I’m sorry. About yesterday.”

Like that, everything must be forgiven, because Thorin smiles at him and clasps his elbow, holding his arm tightly. Kili can’t help but smile back. 

Kili’s in a far better mood when the company finally starts moving again. His feet are still cold and his clothes are still damp, but the sun is shining as brightly as it did the day before, and he sinks low in his saddle, body bent and loose. Fili doesn’t say anything, but he still rides next to Kili, and Kili feels himself fall into a doze, lulled by the sound of his pony playing with the bit, the leather of the reins smooth and soft as butter in his hands.

The countryside passes by like a hallucinatory dream, trees and shrubs one time he opens his eyes, rolling farmland the next time he opens his eyes. He closes his eyes on a little cottage fields away and opens his eyes to prickly bushes and craggy rocks. He shifts in the saddle, his shoulders warm from the sunshine, and watches the shadows of clouds race over the road ahead. 

They break to water the ponies and stretch their legs, then they go on again. The line gets shuffled up and Kili finds himself riding beside Dwalin, Fili trailing them like a gloomy third. Kili is surprised. He’s barely seen Dwalin all morning and he was expecting Dwalin to ignore him for days, since that seems to be the way things go. 

“There were berries,” Dwalin says apropos of nothing, “if you’d want them.” He edges his pony a little closer to Kili’s and holds out his hand. Kili holds out his hand, too, fast and eager, and Dwalin tips his hand, pouring raspberries into Kili’s palm.

The berries aren’t quite ripe, tart and a little hard on Kili’s tongue, and Kili eats them one at a time, taking his time with them. Fili demands his fair share of them and Kili, feeling stingy and possessive, tosses Fili the smallest, palest raspberries in his hand. When the raspberries are gone, leaving a faint stain in Kili’s palm, Kili digs his hands into the mane of his pony and sighs.

“It’s a good day,” he says when Dwalin looks at him curiously. Dwalin quirks a smile at him and Fili tosses a hard little raspberry at his head, and Kili almost wishes the road would never end.

x

The third day out from Weathertop, the weather turns truly foul. It starts with a downpour, a heavy, pelting rain that soaks through Kili’s hood in minutes. The rain rolls off the leather of his coat, beading on the fur, and even when Kili folds his coat closed around his body, the rain seeps through, soaking through his vest and tunic. He’s wet clear through to his skin before the company has gone more than a mile. His clothes cling to him, clammy and cold, and he shifts in the saddle awkwardly, trying to pluck his clothes away from his skin. 

“I think I have water in my boots,” he says to Fili, nearly shouting over the rapping of the rain on the trees around them.

Fili nods and pushes his pony to nose up closer to Kili. Fili looks even wetter than Kili, which is a bit of a comfort.

“I think we may drown,” Fili says; he’s grinning and shaking his head like a dog, his hair flinging water everywhere. Kili grimaces, ducking his head to avoid being hit by one of Fili’s braids.

“Only if you’re stupid enough to stare up at the sky,” Kili replies, then grins back at Fili, saying, “Oh, wait--”

Fili tries to nudge Kili’s pony off the road for that, and Kili stands up in his stirrups to knock the branch over Fili’s head with the tip of his bow, sending torrents of rain down on Fili and, Kili sincerely hopes, down the back of Fili’s neck.

The rain grows heavier and heavier and they’re forced to stop before midday for fear of breaking the ponies’ legs in the thick mud and on the slick rocks. Kili is thrilled to get off his pony until he’s on the ground, standing in wet boots, nearly calf-deep in mud the consistency of clay. He’s barely taken three steps through the mud when Thorin calls him over, saying, “Go with Fili and try to find some shelter.” Thorin looks closer at Kili, then adds, “And don’t waste any time doing it.”

“He doesn’t trust us,” Kili mutters as they trudge their way through the mud and undergrowth. He’s not sure he can feel his legs anymore. 

“Of course he doesn’t,” Fili says as reasonably as ever, and Kili can only roll his eyes and try not to trip over the slick, molding leaves of the forest.

It takes them nearly an hour to find a cave big enough for the entirety of the company, and then it takes nearly an hour more to get the dwarves, hobbit, wizard, and ponies all back to the cave. By that time, everyone in the company is caked in mud up to their knees, and Kili and Fili are caked in mud up past their waists. When Thorin sees the cave, he eyes it distrustfully, looking up at the overhanging lip of the cave like it’s planning to collapse and kill them all. If it means Kili won’t have to walk another step in the mud, Kili thinks the cave collapsing could only be a good thing.

“We checked it,” Fili says soothingly, such a balm to Thorin’s paranoia. Kili hides his face behind his pony’s wet mane so Thorin can’t see his laughter. “There aren’t any faults in the stone, no weak points that the rain can erode.”

The instant Thorin nods his approval and tells Kili and Fili to dry off, Kili yanks his bags off his pony, dragging them and himself back into the deepest, and therefore driest, part of the cave. He peels his coat off, drops it on the sandy floor, then kneels, digging his fingers into the cool sand, rubbing the sand over his hands until his hands are dry. He yanks off his belt, then his vest, and then his tunic. His skin is cold and damp, but Mahal it’s better than having wet clothes sticking to him. He throws himself back on his arse, grabbing one waterlogged boot and yanking at it stubbornly until it comes off. 

By the time Fili has dragged his bags back to Kili’s corner, Kili is sitting in the sand, as naked as the day he was born, and feeling as wet and bedraggled as a dead thing. He says so to Fili, and Fili says, 

“Well, you don’t look like you’re dead.” Fili looks over his shoulder toward the front of the cave, then shifts a few inches to the side. “I think Thorin may break something if Dwalin looks over here again.”

Rain must be something of a miracle, because Kili is simply too cold and too wet to give a damn about Dwalin or Thorin or anything else of that kind. He snorts instead, laying out his wet clothes on the sand.

“Everything’s wet,” he mutters, laying his socks out side by side. Fili says something almost agreeable, and Kili spreads his tunic out on the sand, then grabs his bedroll, snapping it open. The blanket is damp from the rain, but beggars can’t be choosers. He wraps himself in the blanket, then lets himself collapse back on the sand, ducking his head into the blanket. 

“All this, over a little summer rain?”

Kili digs his toes into his blanket, wondering if his feet are a little less cold now, or if that’s just his mind playing tricks on him. “I don’t see you doing any differently,” he mumbles against the heavy weave of his blanket. He warms up slowly and sleepily, and by the time his toes feel warm, he’s half-asleep. He stretches out on the sand, cocooned in his blanket, and he finally falls asleep, listening to the roar of the rain outside.

When he wakes up, the world beyond the lip of the cave is white. Kili sits up, his blanket twisted around him, and asks a little stupidly, “Snow?”

“Fog.” Gandalf is sitting near the lip of the cave, next to a small fire, and Thorin is sitting next to him. They’re both looking back at Kili and they must be smoking, because Kili can see pink and green smoke butterflies fluttering around their heads. 

“Fog?” Kili asks, possibly as stupidly as he asked if it was snow. He sits up a little straighter, trying to untwist his blanket from his body.

“Fog,” Gandalf repeats. “It seems, Kili, that we will not be travelling today.”

Some kind soul had moved Kili’s clothes closer to the fire, and had even scraped off a good majority of the mud that had been caked into the weave. Kili thinks it might have been Dori, because that seems to be a very Dori-like thing to do. He pulls on his small clothes and his trousers, then his tunic and vest, and decides that, yes, Dori might be his favorite of his companions. 

Most everyone else is sleeping, spread out through the cave, and when Kili cranes his neck, trying to find the ponies, Thorin points his pipe towards the thick fog.

“The rain stopped in the night,” Thorin says, “so we moved the ponies out in the morning. They’re tied to a line, they won’t be lost, even in the fog.”

“It will be good for the company to have a rest,” Gandalf says before Kili can even figure out if he should apologize for apparently sleeping all day and all night. “Nearly everyone slept through the night,” Gandalf adds, looking at Kili. Gandalf nods at something only he sees, and blows a beautiful smoke ring of purple, and then blows a ship of gold that sails out into the fog.

Kili settles there by the fire, a little closer to Gandalf than to Thorin, and watches the beautiful things that Gandalf weaves in the smoke. Thorin hands him a potato that had been buried in the coals at the edge of the fire, and Kili cups it in his hand, hot and soft, and eats it slowly, dazedly. Kili is licking his reddened fingers and is just starting to feel properly awake when Thorin taps his pipe clean.

“Kili,” Thorin says, “do you think you could find game in this fog?”

Kili looks out at the fog; he can’t even see the trees outside the lip of the cave, and if he squints he thinks he might see the bulky shape of the ponies, but that’s probably wishful thinking. He hesitates, then says, very slowly, “Yes, probably.”

“Get what you can, then. Enough for two days, if you can manage it.” Thorin slides his pipe away into one of his coat pockets, then looks out at the fog, too. “And try not to get lost.”

Kili grumps and rolls his eyes, says, “I won’t get lost.” 

Thorin smiles at him, brief and bright, and grabs Kili, pulls him close enough to press a kiss against the top of Kili’s head. Kili can’t help himself; he curls his hands in the folds of Thorin’s coat, holding on tightly, and Thorin wraps his arm more firmly around Kili’s shoulders.

“Go on, then,” Thorin murmurs, and Kili makes himself let go of Thorin’s coat. Thorin adds, “Don’t bother waking Fili. Dwalin can go with you.”

Kili pulls on his boots, doing up the buckles, and Gandalf says quietly, “There is quite the war going on around you, isn’t there.”

Gandalf is looking across to the cave, to where Thorin has gone to speak with Dwalin. Kili looks, too, then yanks the buckle on his left boot tighter. “I’m a bargaining chip,” Kili says shortly. “We all are, even Thorin.”

“Though your price seems to be a great deal higher than another’s.” 

“Not my price,” Kili corrects. “The price of my bed.” He stands, tamping the toes of his boots against the fire-warmed rocks. “Any requests, Gandalf?”

Gandalf looks up at Kili through bushy eyebrows, and Kili waits a little impatiently as Gandalf puffs methodically on his pipe. When Kili is ready to leave, politeness be damned, Gandalf takes his pipe away from his mouth and says, “A deer would not go amiss.”

“In this fog?” But Kili’s already thinking of it, wondering how close to the river they are and how likely he is to see a deer through the fog; thinking of how he can try to use the fog to his own advantage. “I’ll do what I can,” he hedges, and Gandalf nods, tipping his pipe in a polite farewell as Kili goes to fetch his things.

“You’ve braided your hair,” Dwalin says when they leave the cave. 

Kili reaches up, self-consciously touching his hair. He’s dragged all his hair into one braid at the nape of his neck, and the plait is terrible, really--thick and awkward and just long enough to hang past the collar of his coat. He can feel curls of hair sticking out of the braid every which way, and he tries to smooth them down, at least a little. “The fog,” he tries to explain, “it’ll just get my hair wet, get in my way.”

Dwalin nods like he understands, then lifts his chin, says, “Go on, then, laddie, lead the way.” When Kili hesitates, Dwalin adds, “I’m just here to fetch and carry.”

The first hours are disastrous. The fog curls through the forest like a great fat cat, slinking between the trees. The fog has made the air heavy and thick, and it feels as though Kili and Dwalin are cut off from the world. The sun must be rising in the sky because the fog is turning a blinding white, but Kili can’t see the sun, nor many trees, nor really much of anything at all. 

They head to the river, then move back into the forest, running parallel to a game trail. At times, Kili can hear the cracks of twigs and branches breaking, but the fog muffles the sounds, making it nearly impossible to pinpoint anything. At times, the fog swirls thick enough, in great curls and hoops, that Kili nearly loses track of Dwalin, too.

He’s set some half-hearted traps and is about ready to suggest they head back to the cave when he sees a shape move in the fog to his right. He freezes, holding up his hand. The shape shifts, moves, and there is the crack of a twig. Kili reaches back to his quiver, draws an arrow and nocks it; lifts his bow and draws, kissing the string. He breathes in, breathes out; the shape moves again, and Kili releases.

It must be a deer, because it screams like a deer, all high-pitched and barking. It turns and bolts through the fog, and Kili takes off after it, throwing his bow over his shoulder and throwing himself into the fog. The forest whips past him, bright fog and the rain-darkened bark of old trees. Kili can barely make out the shape of the deer, but he can see where the fog is thrown into wisps by the deer’s flight. He chases after it, boots sliding on the leaves and mud and muck, flailing madly each time he has to turn, grabbing at trees and rocks to right himself and throw himself forward.

When he leaps over a fallen tree, his heels hit the slick, moldy layer of dead leaves, and slide out from under him. He hits the ground hard, back first, and his breath is knocked out of him with a sickening crunch. He lies there, stunned, his mouth open and his breath gone. Mahal, he can feel his lungs, empty and flat, and he needs to breathe, but he can’t. He turns his face, pressing his hot cheek against the cold mulch, and tries to gasp. He can feel his lungs burn as they fill, just the smallest bit, and he gasps again, drawing in as much air as he can. He turns over onto his side, gasping and wheezing, and wonders where the deer has gone.

He forces himself up, lungs still feeling empty and his back screaming in pain, and staggers forward a few steps. He has to grab onto a tree, hold onto it as black spots grow and shrink in his vision, then staggers forward a few more steps. He’s gone a yard, maybe two, when he sees a long gouge in the mud, leaves and dead brush turned over. There’s blood, too, smeared on the leaves and leading away, so Kili follows it.

The deer isn’t much farther ahead. It is lying on the ground as though it was thrown there, its legs tangled together and its neck stretched out. Its side is heaving for breath, shuddering, and Kili can see where his arrow is piercing its side. Blood is coating its white belly, bubbling up around the shaft of the arrow. It will be a slow death.

Kili leans heavily against a tree, ducking his head between his legs and breathing heavily. When he feels a little less faint, he fumbles beneath his coat, drawing out his knife. He approaches the deer from behind; his heavy boots snap the twigs on the forest floor and the deer tries to lunge upwards, its legs digging at the ground and its neck twisting around. Kili throws himself on the deer, his body pinning the deer’s withers and shoulders, his arm pressing down on the deer’s neck. The deer is screaming now, from fear or pain or both, and Kili jabs his knee against the deer’s head, forcing its head down so that its neck goes loose, the veins slipping in front of the windpipe.

He clings to the deer as he slits its throat, throwing his weight against the deer’s spasming body. The deer’s eyes roll in its head, its mouth open and gasping, and it struggles until it dies, trying to throw Kili from its side. When it is dead, Kili slides down against its body, pressing his body against the deer’s back. He leans his head against the deer’s withers, feeling tired and out of breath, and closes his eyes for just a moment.

“You took off like a jackrabbit,” Dwalin says gruffly. “I wasn’t sure I’d find you again.” Kili opens his eyes, looking up at Dwalin. Dwalin’s arms are crossed over his chest, his knuckledusters on prominent display, and Kili feels laughter bubbling up in his chest, between his bruised lungs.

“Would you have punched it?” Kili asks, just a little crazily. Dwalin looks at Kili a little more closely, like he’s looking for whichever part of Kili may be going mad.

“Tell me none of that blood is yours.” Dwalin lifts his chin at Kili and Kili looks down at himself, at his bloodstained shirt. “And your face,” Dwalin adds as Kili plucks sadly at his shirt.

“None of it,” Kili says, and he goes to wipe his face; he sees his hand, covered in mud, dead leaves, and the deer’s blood, and thinks better of it. He sighs instead, pushing himself to his knees, then up to his feet. “Help me get it to the river.”

Dwalin carries the deer by himself, throwing the body over his shoulders. Kili trudges along behind Dwalin, still feeling out of breath and bruised. Dwalin picks his way through the forest with surprising ease, though if Kili looks, he can see the torn bramble and skidding footprints from his mad chase through the forest. By the time they reach the river, Kili just wants to crawl back into his sandy corner in the cave and not come out until it’s a proper summer. He settles instead for throwing a rope over a low branch on an oak tree and hoisting the deer up by its hind legs. 

He sheds his coat and vest and gloves, because dressing deer is always messy work. It’s hot work, though, and the heat of the deer’s body is at least soothing to his hands. Dwalin watches him work, and Kili dresses the deer slowly, meticulously. He saws through the spinal cord, then cuts into the deer’s sternum, up through the throat, then back down. He wraps the liver and heart in linen, throws the rest of the guts into the bushes for foxes or whatever else might live nearby. 

“You’re good at that,” Dwalin says when Kili is flushing the deer’s cavity out with water for the second time. Kili’s trying to decide whether to bother skinning the deer here, or back at the camp; It’d be easier skinning the deer here, but the blood would probably stain Dwalin’s coat. 

“Mmm,” Kili hums, and he goes to fill up the waterskins again, to flush out the cavity one last time. “Mother didn’t want us to work in the mines and none of the forges would take me, so there wasn’t much else for me to do.”

He decides to skin the deer by the river, because the fog is still white-bright with sunlight and it is, all told, rather nice to spend some time near Dwalin without worrying about who is watching them. It’s even nicer to be doing something as attention-consuming as skinning the deer, because it doesn’t matter if Kili doesn’t have anything intelligent to say.

He’s nearly done with skinning the deer when he asks, the body of the deer a shield between Dwalin and himself, “Do you love Thorin?”

“Aye,” Dwalin says immediately. “As a brother and as my king. I love him, and I would follow him anywhere. But most of us would say that, or we wouldn’t be here.”

Kili pulls the skin further off the body, hits a rough spot. He grabs his knife, slips it between the skin and the muscle. “And do you love me?” he asks, feeling rather like he’s going to be ill. The knife cuts through the tight bit, and the skin pulls more easily from the muscle.

“No,” Dwalin says, a little slower than he’d said yes before. “No, but I will, in time.”

Kili wants to throw his knife at the ground; he wants to tear the skin off the deer and throw it at Dwalin; he wants to throw a fit, to scream and maybe even cry, and then sit in the mud until Fili and Thorin come to fix everything. He does none of that--he pulls at the skin until it’s been pulled down to the joints of the forelegs, then saws through the bones. He folds the skin carefully, fur on the outside, and slips it into the bag with the liver and heart he saved. He tosses the bag onto his coat, then steps back, looking at the deer.

“You might want to wrap it up before carrying it back to camp,” he says. He looks at the naked, dead body for a moment more, then turns, heading down to the river.

“Kili,” Dwalin says, and Kili steps to the side, turns and holds up his hands and says,

“Don’t touch me. I’m all over with blood.”


	3. Chapter 3

Kili spends days obsessing over everything Dwalin has said or done. He replays each conversation they’ve had, turns over every word Dwalin has said to him; he thinks about the words, the order they were said in, the nuances he thinks Dwalin might have meant. He goes over every touch, too, and he thinks about how Dwalin has only over touched Kili’s hair, and not Kili’s body. He obsesses, and he obsesses, and he _obsesses_ , and it hurts.

He wonders if Dwalin had ever been aroused, if Dwalin had wanted to touch Kili as much as Kili had wanted to touch Dwalin, and he thinks, _No_ , and his body burns with embarrassment and shame. He aches with it, with disappointment and a new sort of loneliness gnawing through his body.

Dwalin keeps his distance, for which Kili is pathetically grateful. With as small as their company is, it’s an obvious effort to keep so much room between them, especially when Dwalin is usually within feet of Thorin and Thorin always seems to be coming to Kili’s side with increasingly ridiculous reasons.

Kili notices the way Thorin looks between Kili and Dwalin, and Kili wants to explain things, but he can’t figure out how to say, “I’m too ugly for him to want me,” without throwing a fit or making himself ill. Thorin never asks, though, and Kili can’t offer up any explanation, so things grow more and more awkward, and Kili knows that everyone in the company has noticed, even their usually not-so-very-observant hobbit. 

It is Fili who finally asks, when they’re sitting up for the first watch. 

“Did something happen?” Fili asks, and he nods over to where Dwalin is sleeping, like Kili wouldn’t be able to figure out what Fili’s asking.

“Spy,” Kili says shortly, and Fili adopts a hurt look. “I know you’re going to tell Thorin everything I tell you. I can call you a tattler, if you’d prefer.”

Fili doesn’t deny it, so Kili sighs and settles himself in for what is sure to be a grueling session of questions and answers.

“Did he do something?” Fili asks after a moment. 

“You don’t seem to have much faith in him,” Kili says drily. Fili reaches over to pinch him and Kili leans away, scowling at Fili. 

“I have faith in him,” Fili says, “but you’ve been upset since you went hunting with him, and you came back all covered in mud.” Fili pauses then says, with great significance in his voice, “Mud on your back. And leaves in your hair.”

Kili flushes, hot and painful, and hopes no one is awake to hear this. “He didn’t do anything, Fili,” he says lowly.

“Did he say something, then?” Fili asks, still prying, and Kili hesitates for too long. “What did he say?” Fili’s voice is rising and Kili grabs the edge of Fili’s coat, in case Fili gets any stupid ideas.

“What does it matter? Just let it go.” Kili tugs at Fili’s coat and Fili shifts closer to him. “It’s not like anything’s changed, or is going to change.”

“Things could, if you wanted them to. Thorin wouldn’t make you go through with this, if you told him.” 

Fili sounds so earnest; Kili has to pull his knees up to his chest and hide his face in them, because Mahal, he doesn’t think he’s ever blushed this hard in his entire life. It’s all embarrassment and shame and hurt, but woven through is that same breathless feeling of excitement he gets whenever he thinks of Dwalin, and he can’t believe he’s willingly having this conversation when half the camp is probably awake and listening to them.

“That’s not a problem,” he says softly, and Fili leans closer, makes a questioning sound. “That’s not a _problem_ ,” he hisses louder, and then shoves his face against his knees. “I like him, that’s not a problem.”

“Then what is the problem?” Fili persists. He looks so concerned, so angry on Kili’s behalf, and Kili loves him for it, and hates him for it, too.

“There is no problem!” He shoves Fili away from him and struggles up to his feet. “I’m going to check on the ponies,” he says, and tries hard to look like he’s not running away.

He’s currying Minty’s coat, throwing his rage into the short, heavy strokes, when Fili approaches him again. Minty is looking blissful, her eyes closed, and she’s leaning back against Kili’s strokes. Dead hair is everywhere, floating in the air and clinging to Kili’s clothes, even trapped in Kili’s eyelashes.

“Kili,” Fili says; there is a horsehair tickling Kili’s eyelid and he can’t blink it away. “Kili, I’m sorry.”

Kili can _feel_ himself shaking, huge shudders running through his body. He lets his hands drop to his waist and leans forward, pressing his forehead against Minty’s side. He’s staring down at the ground, at the toes of his boots and Minty’s hooves, and he watches as Fili’s boots sidle up next to his. Fili throws an arm around Kili’s shoulders and Kili sighs, letting Fili sink against him.

“I won’t tell Thorin,” Fili offers. Kili shrugs half-heartedly and Fili hugs him tightly, pressing his head against Kili’s back. “It won’t be so bad,” Fili says. “Not in the end.”

There is the sound of a footstep and Fili lets go, turning away. Kili turns, too, expecting to see Thorin glowering at them. 

It is Gandalf, instead, and Gandalf’s glower looks much more tired than Thorin’s ever does. “Master Fili,” Gandalf says, “I believe it would be wise if you returned to your watch at the camp, before we are overrun by something more dangerous than sleeping ponies. No, Master Kili,” Gandalf continues when Fili guiltily slinks away and Kili tries to go with him, “I intend to have a word with you.”

Kili can’t help it--his shoulders go tense at the idea of being scolded, and a scolding it is sure to be. He loosens his grip on the curry comb and tries to look as though he’s not giving great thought to fleeing after Fili.

Gandalf takes no notice of Kili’s tension, or if he does, he simply doesn’t care. He comes to stand next to Kili, patting Minty absently, and looking upwards, as though the sky is some great mystery for wizards to examine. When Gandalf finally looks down at Kili again, his face is a great deal less dark.

“When I said that there seemed to be a war about you, Master Kili, I did not expect my words to be proven so true. What have you done? The company is in an uproar, no one knows where to look, and I have never seen your uncle look quite so lost. Though,” Gandalf adds, the sound of humor seeping back into his voice, “Dori does look quite thrilled with things. You know how fond he is of all things dramatic. I’m sure he’d be best pleased if this all ended with weeping and blood. No, I must ask again, what have you done, Kili?”

“What have I--nothing! I haven’t done anything,” Kili says hotly. Gandalf gives Kili a disbelieving look and Kili can practically feel his hackles going up, feeling defensive and angry. “I haven’t,” he snaps.

“None the less,” Gandalf says, “there is some foolish thought in your head.”

Gandalf rests the end of his staff firmly in the ground, like he’s preparing to wait all night for whatever he expects Kili to tell him. Kili closes his mouth tightly, glaring at a spot just below Gandalf’s shoulder.

“Come now, my boy,” Gandalf says, far more gently, when Kili is certain they’ve been standing there for minutes. “Whatever you tell me, I shall never breathe to another soul.”

Kili looks up at Gandalf’s face, then back down to the spot below his shoulder. “Not even Thorin?” he asks, and Gandalf leans heavily on his staff, sighing like an old man.

“Not even to Thorin. You have my word.”

And Kili wants to tell him everything, even more than he wants to tell Thorin, and certainly more than he wants to tell Fili. He wants to tell Gandalf how hurt he is, how it feels like there’s a weight in his belly. He wants to tell Gandalf how he’s not a proper dwarf, how Dwalin doesn’t truly want him, how he’s angry and hurt and scared. He wants to tell Gandalf how badly he wants to hate everyone else, but can still only really hate himself. There’s too much to tell Gandalf, and Kili is afraid that if he begins to say any of it, it will all come out, and he will come unravelled with what’s left of his heart.

“I want too much,” Kili finally settles on saying, spitting the words bitterly, and he is utterly shocked when Gandalf laughs.

“My dear Master Kili,” Gandalf says, “you are a dwarf. I have never known a dwarf who was not jealous of the things he loved. No, do not interrupt me,” Gandalf says quite severely, and Kili holds his tongue. “Dwarves are remarkable beings. They give their love wholeheartedly, without holding back the least bit. They are jealous and possessive, but they are also vigilant. I imagine,” Gandalf adds, leaning even further forward on his staff, peering closely at Kili, “that there is no safer place to be, than in the heart of a dwarf.”

“But I’m not.” The words slip out almost before Kili realizes it. His hands are trembling and so he holds them tight and says, “I’m not in the heart of any dwarf.”

“Oh, my boy, you run deeper into his heart than he realizes.” Gandalf reaches out to hold Kili’s shoulder and Kili lets himself lean into Gandalf’s hand, just the slightest bit. “You’ll run a canyon through his heart before the end.” Gandalf squeezes his fingers tight around Kili’s shoulder and Kili ducks his head. “Now, I suggest you wash off before you try to go to sleep, or you’ll be up all night with horse hair poking you.”

Even if Gandalf is not a very great wizard, he is a kind one; he waits as Kili rinses his face and hair, then walks with Kili back to the camp, his staff shining like a gem scattering firelight.

x

For as much as Thorin seems to hate it, and for as many elves as there are, Kili thinks resting in Rivendell is a wonderful idea. The food is bland and not very filling, but there are rooms with proper beds, open hallways for smoking and drinking, and a distinct lack of orcs, which will always be a positive in Kili’s opinion. And the best part, he thinks, might be the heated baths. 

He has to scrape the grime from his skin with his fingernails, layers and layers of mud and sweat and blood and dead skin. It takes just as much effort to wash his hair, soaping his hair and scraping at his scalp and doing it all again. It’s four tubs of hot water before he feels properly clean, and by then his skin is red and raw. He gingerly pulls on the elvish clothes left for him, twists his hair into a knot, and sneaks back to the room he is sharing with Fili.

Fili is kneeling on the floor, digging through his pack, and he looks up when Kili comes into the room.

“You smell like flowers,” Fili says, and he nods at Kili. “Elvish clothes, undone hair--did Thorin see you like that?”

“No one saw me like anything.” Kili climbs onto the bed without too much difficulty, and sits tailor style at the head of the bed, on top of one of the rather remarkably large pillows. The blankets on the bed are as soft as the clothes he’s wearing, and he fingers them, wondering if he should see to having some sent to the Blue Mountains for Mother. “Everything is overly large. It’s like being surrounded by your pass-me-downs all over again.”

Kili can just see the side of Fili’s smile as Fili says, “My old things never did fit you very well, did they?”

Kili looks at Fili, at his properly wide shoulders and his face, so much thicker and dwarvish than his own, and says, “No, they didn’t. Go take a bath, then I’ll help you braid your hair.”

Elvish furniture is so much larger than anything Kili is used to. The bed is far larger than the one he used to share with Fili when they were young. He spreads out on the bed, reaching an arm and leg to each corner; he covers little more than half of the bed, his fingertips and toes reaching out across cool, empty sheets. He lies there on the bed, rubbing the smoothness of the sheets between his thumb and fingers, and stares at the ceiling.

The ceilings at home in the Blue Mountains are all hewn from the stone, arches carved to make deep, warm shadows. The ceiling of his room at home is veined in blue and green, steady lines which never waver, marching without fear into dark heights where the light cannot reach. Here, the ceiling is made of overhanging branches and spreading tree limbs, real and carved alike. There are living things carved into the wood, deer and rabbits and foxes, slim bodies ducking behind stylized trees. When he blinks, the curves of the trees and animals bend and twist, moving across the ceiling. A fox stalks some unseen prey, slinking across the ceiling and across Kili’s eyelids, and Kili rubs the bedsheet held between his fingers. When the fox disappears between the trees, disappearing back into the ceiling, Kili turns away, rolling onto his side and dragging the blankets up over his shoulder. 

“What, already asleep?” Fili is touching Kili’s face, pushing Kili’s hair back. “Your hair will be impossible in the morning.”

Kili groans, turning his head to shove his face into the pillow, and Fili pulls back Kili’s hair again, pulling it and twisting it. “Leave off,” Kili slurs into the pillow, but it feels nice, Fili combing through Kili’s hair; he must be braiding it, even though the braid probably won’t even last the night. Kili thinks, quite blearily, that Fili might be a prince of pointless endeavors. 

He dreams of Dwalin kissing his hair, kissing his hands; he dreams of grabbing Dwalin’s face, his fingers sinking into Dwalin’s beard, and of tracing the tattoos spread over Dwalin’s head. He wakes in the middle of the night, when the room is dark and quiet, and his body is aching with loneliness.

Fili is asleep in the bed, turned to the wall, and Kili desperately wants to wake him. He settles for tucking his pillow tight against his body, twisting around the pillow until his face is mashed tight against it. His breath is hot and humid and if he cries, no one can hear it, not even himself.

x

“We’ll stay here until midsummer,” Thorin tells them with a pained expression.

“Just over a fortnight,” Gandalf adds genially. “It will give us time to rest and prepare for the road ahead.” Thorin’s expression gains that much more pain and Kili truly cannot look away from it. It’s breathtaking, in a somewhat horrid way, at just how much hatred Thorin holds for the elves. Taking refuge with the elves must taste like ashes in his mouth, Kili muses.

He stays close to Thorin for hours because it’s not hard to see that Thorin is truly upset. Kili’s not sure what good he is in lightening Thorin’s mood, but Fili is good natured enough for all three of them. They sit in Thorin’s borrowed room, examining Thorin’s map and making lists of what supplies they managed to save from trolls, escaped ponies, and mad dashes through the wilderness. By early afternoon Thorin is in a good enough mood that he tells them, “Get out of my room before I throw you out.”

Thorin even mocks a kick at Fili’s backside, his face softer than it has been in weeks.

When they’re in the hall, Kili throws his arm over Fili’s shoulder and drags him along with him, saying, “Well, I suppose Rivendell is safe from Thorin’s wrath for another day. Now you can keep me from burning it down.”

Fili looks dubious at the honor of joining Kili, but he does, following Kili out into the grounds of Rivendell. They wander the grounds, cutting green branches from poplars, birches, and ash trees. Fili pries a heavy knot of pitch from a spruce tree while Kili gathers dry deadwood. They build a small fire near a little stream, and Fili melts the pitch with charcoal while Kili straightens the green wood, holding the shafts near the fire, then bending the heated wood against the palm of his hand.

He looks up when he is sealing the ends of the shafts with pitch, and feels his heart skip a beat. There are three elves standing only feet away from them, watching Fili and Kili curiously. Kili bites back a curse, grabbing at Fili’s arm reflexively. He can feel Fili jolt in surprise. 

“What’s this, are the dwarves are trying to burn down Lord Elrond’s forest?” one of the elves asks. The elves are all wearing pale, loose trousers and robes, and between their clothing and their smooth, blank faces, Kili cannot tell them apart, or even if they’re male or female. He certainly cannot tell if they’re amused or irritated; he thinks the elf who spoke may be smiling, though that may be wishful thinking. 

Fili grabs the back of Kili’s vest, tugging lightly, and Kili holds his tongue.

“Our apologies if we’ve overstepped the bounds of Lord Elrond’s hospitality,” Fili says, so unfailingly polite. He’s still gripping the back of Kili’s vest and Kili isn’t sure who concerns Fili more, Kili or the elves.

The elves all blink slowly, almost in unison, and Kili suppresses a shudder. The elf on the far left blinks a second time, then says in that strange, tilting accent all the elves seem to have, “Guests have no need to pitch and fletch their own arrows. We shall supply you with as many arrows as you need.”

Kili hopes his apprehension doesn’t show on his face; elvish arrows seem to be flimsy things, as slender and delicate as their makers. Whatever his apprehension, though, it seems to be nothing to the elves, who are all talking now.

“I did not know that dwarves are archers,” the first elf says, and the last elf, who has stayed silent the longest, says in a voice that Kili can only think of as cold, “Dwarves? I see only one dwarf here.”

The results are rather spectacular, from a bystander’s perspective. Fili leaps to his feet, looking as thunderous as Thorin has ever looked, and snaps, “Hold your tongue, elf!”

The elves are just as reactive. The first elf grabs the last, yanking him further away from the fire, and they seem to be scowling at each other, if any expression on their blank-looking faces can be called a scowl. The elf on the left is saying something sharply in Elvish, then holding up his hands, palms facing Fili and Kili.

“I apologize for my companion’s thoughtlessness,” the elf says smoothly. It is nearly impossible to read the elves; their voices tilt so strangely and their faces are so blank, that Kili can’t decide whether the elf’s apology is sincere. Kili feels thrown off-balance, like he’s staring into the open mouth of a dog, unsure if it is smiling or snarling. 

Fili is bristling in front of Kili, like he’s about to throw himself at the elves, and Kili reaches out, tapping Fili’s knee with the green shaft in his hand. Fili looks back at Kili and Kili hisses in a breath. Fili’s face is pale, his cheeks flushed with rage, and his eyes look fever-bright. Kili taps the green shaft against Fili’s knee again, gently, and tries to catch Fili’s eyes.

“It’s forgotten,” Kili says then, when no one moves, repeats it louder. “It is forgotten.”

Fili’s shoulders slowly fall, his whole body seeming to diminish, and Kili has to say, very gently, “They were only words. There is no harm done.”

For all that Fili no longer seems ready to leap over the fire, braids and blades awhirl, the air in the clearing remains incredibly tense. Kili’s own hands are clenched tight, and when the green shaft in his hand creaks warningly, he takes a deep breath, letting go of the shaft and letting his breath out.

“Fili,” he says, “help me with the pitch.”

Fili sinks slowly to the ground, still in between Kili and the elves, and Kili hurts for him. He takes a chance, reaching out to rub his fingers over Fili’s knuckles, and Fili’s mouth tightens into a deeper grimace. It will not be easy, then, to put Fili back to rights. 

“It was nothing,” Kili says softly, reaching out to pick up the bowl of liquid pitch. He dips a finger into the pitch, testing it, then sets it a little closer to the fire. 

“The insult--” Fili hisses, and Kili slaps Fili’s knee, hard. Fili leans back, clearly startled.

“And what would you do,” Kili says even softer, this time in Khuzdul. “Fight them over something even dwarves say? What then.”

Fili flinches. His face is something truly terrible, all anguish and pain, and Kili can’t look at it. He looks past Fili instead, to where the elves seem to likewise be having a private conference. As he watches, two of the elves leave, slipping back into the trees. One elf stays behind, and Kili is rather sure it is the sensible elf, the one who apologized.

The elf approaches the fire cautiously, his hands limp and open at his sides, and when Fili does nothing, the elf sinks to sit on the other side of the fire. Kili reaches out again, to test the pitch; it sticks to his fingers, liquid and warm, and he smears it on the end of an arrow shaft, then blows gently, cooling the pitch. When the pitch is mostly hard, Kili turns the shaft and seals the other end, too.

“May I?” the elf asks, holding out his hand, and Kili silently passes the shaft over. The elf runs his fingers along the shaft, turns it in his hand and sights its lines. “Birch,” the elf says, and he nods at the pile of shafts lying between Kili and Fili. “And poplar and ash. These are firm arrows, meant to pierce flesh. What do you hunt, Master Dwarf?”

Fili shifts next to Kili and Kili says, as evasively as he can, “Whatever there is to hunt.”

He thinks he sees a bit of a smile on the elf’s face, but he’s not sure. The elf nods, looking down at the green shaft again, then says, “Your company seemed in better spirits than yesterday.” The elf looks back up at Kili and adds, with what is certainly humor, “I was the one who greeted your company at the gate yesterday.”

Kili isn’t sure what to say, so he smiles wanly at the elf. The elf seems to take it as permission and takes one of the unsealed shafts, sealing an end with quick, thin fingers. The idea of an elf touching Kili’s arrows, of _altering_ Kili’s arrows, strikes him as horribly wrong. It makes him feel uncomfortable and even unsafe, and he has to struggle not to pull back his things, to snap something cruel and hurtful to the elf. 

Fili, it seems, does not have that sort of patience. “I _cannot_ ,” he snarls, leaping to his feet beside Kili. Whatever it is he can’t do, though, is a mystery, because he struggles for a word, then turns, storming from the small clearing. 

Kili doesn’t watch him go; he doesn’t watch the elf pitch the last of Kili’s arrows, either. He sits there, beside the fire, watching the fire slowly die down, diminished to coals and embers.

When the elf is done, he reaches out to touch Kili and Kili leans away, saying, “Don’t.”

The elf’s face is an ugly thing, Kili thinks; his mouth is thin and flat, his nose is narrow, and his eyes look dead. There’s nothing in the elf’s face that Kili can read, and Kili wonders if maybe all the elves are really just mechanical dolls, things with gears and hinged joints but not hearts nor souls. The elf lifts his eyebrows, mouth still flat and straight, and says, “I apologize.”

Kili buries the fire, drowns it with water from the stream, and watches steam escape from the mud and ashes. He gathers his things, the pitched shafts and the bowl of pitch, and walks slowly back to his room, listening to elves singing in the trees around him, their eerie voices chasing his footsteps.

Fili is lying on the bed, his back turned to the door. Kili doesn’t bother with kindness. He dumps the bowl of pitch on the floor and kicks one of Fili’s bags out of the way.

“What were you thinking?” he snaps. “You would’ve ruined everything. We’re their guests, we need their supplies, and you would fight with the--with the _elves_. How _stupid_.”

“The things they said!” Fili is sitting up on the bed and he looks as angry as he did when he ran away. “To say that to any dwarf, but to say it to an heir of Durin--”

“What does that matter?” Kili drops the green shafts on the end of the bed before he’s tempted to throw them and undo all of the day’s work. “Let them say what they want. We leave in a fortnight and we’ll curse them as we go, but just hold your stupid _tongue_ while you’re here.”

“Doesn’t it hurt--”

The blood sounds like a roar in Kili’s head. He wants to show Fili exactly how much it hurts, to make Fili feel how much it hurts, how much more it hurts for him than it hurts for Fili. He grabs one of Fili’s bags and throws it at him. Fili ducks but the bag still catches him on his shoulder, knocking him off-balance. Kili grabs another bag and throws it, too.

“Of course it hurts!” he shrieks, like one of the ghosts that wander through the deepest mines. “Of course, of course, of course--” He throws bag after bag, until there’s nothing left on the floor to throw. He throws himself to his arse and starts yanking his left boot off, so he can throw that, too, and maybe the right boot as well.

“Kili.” Fili says it so softly that for a moment Kili thinks it’s just the pounding of his own heart. He stops unbuckling his boot and looks up to where Fili is poking his head over the edge of the bed. Fili looks rumpled but unharmed by the bags. His face is still pale, but the angry flush is gone from his cheeks.

“I’ll throw my boot at you,” Kili warns him. Fili’s eyes dart downward, towards Kili’s boots, and his head retreats a little from the edge of the bed.

“I’ll do my best not to anger you, then,” Fili says, his tone reserved. His head disappears, and a moment later Kili hears the sound of a body hitting a mattress and Fili’s long sigh.

“It doesn’t matter if I hurt,” Kili says, when he’s pulled off his boots and pushed them across the floor. He’s lying on his stomach, his cheek pressed against the floor’s cold stone, and he’s looking at the dark corners underneath the bed. “Nothing really matters unless it will get back Erebor. You know that, Fili.”

“I know,” Fili’s voice says from the bed, so soft and so gentle, and Kili has to wonder if he’s wrong; if for as much as Kili hurts, Fili always hurts more.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Dubiously consensual/nonconsensual sexual activity. There are a lot of consent issues.
> 
> ALSO, I have a lot of feelings concerning Bifur and communication. In this series, he is living with aphasia (more specifically, a branch of verbal paraphasia) as a result of the axe to the head, and the following infection in his brain. So he's able to communicate--but mutual understanding is pretty damn low. Especially when it's Kili who is trying to understand.

Fili and Kili spend the next morning in Thorin’s room. Fili is reading something of Thorin’s, Kili isn’t sure what, and Kili is fletching arrows he began prepping months ago, long before they left the Blue Mountains. Fili never breathes a word of the confrontation with the elves the day before, and Kili is grateful. He’s sure Rivendell would never survive Thorin’s rage if Thorin heard what had been said. 

Thorin’s in a far better mood than the day before. The weariness of the road must have melted off him, because he teases Fili and Kili like he hasn’t done for years, telling jokes and doing impersonations and making the cruelest insights about the stuffiest dwarves in the Blue Mountains until Kili is sick from laughing too hard. 

For all that the furniture is foreign and the view from the window is strange, their morning in Rivendell feels more like home than any morning has since they left the Blue Mountains. When Balin knocks on the door, just before noon, Thorin’s mood immediately drops back to grim; Kili feels an aching sense of loss. He gathers up his arrows, fletched and unfletched alike, and says goodbye to Thorin. Thorin barely watches him go, already caught up in the memory of Erebor and their quest and being king of a mountain no one has seen in over a century.

Kili spends the rest of the day aimlessly, ghosting through the halls of Rivendell. Whenever he sees an elf, he turns and heads back the way he came, which means he doesn’t cover a lot of a ground, but does do a lot of backtracking. In the mid-afternoon he runs into Bifur and Bofur, and he follows them back to the room they’re sharing with Bombur.

Bifur mutters in Khuzdul about rain and sheep as he sets out a line of toys on the stone floor, pausing now and then to motion for Kili to sit. Kili does so, feeling a little awkward, because he never really knows what to say to Bifur and because he really can’t look away from that axehead. Or at least, he can’t look away from the axehead until Bifur presses down on the head of a little carved pony in the line of toys. The pony’s head bounces back up, then ducks low again, and as the pony’s head moves, the pony’s legs move, too, like the pony is trotting along.

“Oh,” Kili says, immediately entranced by the toy. “How did you do that?” 

Bifur says something about purple turtledoves and shoves the pony into Kili’s hands. Kili turns the wooden pony over in his hands, peering at it closely. He can almost see how it works, the joints in the legs and the joints in the pony’s neck, but he just doesn’t get it.

“Yellow,” Bifur says triumphantly in Khuzdul. “Yellow carnations dry in the rain, drink the tea.”

Bifur presses the lever of another toy, this one an octangular box. The lid folds back in sharp, crisp movements, and the carved figure of a dwarf rises from inside the box. The dwarf is swinging a pickaxe, up and down, and Kili has to put the pony down so he can pick up the box, turning it this way and that to examine the little wooden miner.

“Blueberries,” Bifur says, and he shows Kili toy after toy, going down the line of little mechanical wonders. Some have levers and some are wound, and one mechanical bird flies in the air when someone’s breath is blown on it. Each one is incredible, a breathtaking piece of engineering, tiny gears clicking together like everything right in the world.

“He’ll teach you,” Bofur says. He’s sitting near Kili, watching with an amused look on his face, and Kili feels himself flush a little. “He’s good at it, for all you can’t understand him.”

“I’d like to,” Kili says slowly, “but I’ve never made anything like--”

“You can do the pony first,” Bofur interrupts. “That’s his favorite, he won’t mind if you mess it up twenty times. It’s one of the easier ones, too, good for beginners.”

Before he knows it, Kili’s been kicked out to the wide hallway, a block of wood in his hand and a little whittling knife, far more delicate than his own. He feels a little dazed, not quite sure how he found himself to be pulled into an apparent apprenticeship under Bifur. He turns the block of wood over in his hands a few times, dragging his thumbnail along the grain of wood, and idly wonders what Thorin would say. 

He’s sitting on a cushioned bench on the grass beyond the main buildings, ghosting smoke rings and trying to find a pony in the block of wood, when Dwalin finds him. Kili hasn’t really looked at Dwalin in days and he’s startled by the ache he feels from seeing Dwalin’s face. Dwalin tilts his head at the bench and Kili silently slides over. When Dwalin sits, Kili can feel his body lean towards Dwalin; he tells himself it is from the change of weight on the cushion, and knows that he’s lying.

Kili blows a few terrible smoke rings, then sighs and gives up. He’s not a wizard and there is no use in pretending to be, whether blowing smoke rings or being smart and evasive. 

“What is it?” he asks instead, blunt and straightforward, the only way he knows how to be.

Dwalin doesn’t even look at him, just says, “We need to talk,” and stands up, walking off into the grounds of Rivendell. 

Before Dwalin has taken more than four steps, Kili is knocking his pipe clean against his hand, burning his palm, and slipping the pipe into the inside pocket of his vest. He jumps off the bench and hurries after Dwalin like an overly eager child, the block of wood clutched in his hand.

Dwalin walks deep into the grounds, until Kili can no longer see the lights of the main buildings, and then farther still. The evening is darker between the trees, the last rays of sunlight caught on the upper branches of the trees, broken and lost amongst the leaves. Dwalin stops in the midst of the trees, turning to face Kili, and Kili stops just outside of the reach.

“You’re upset, laddie,” Dwalin says, his voice pitched low.

Kili denies it on reflex, saying, “I’m not!”

Dwalin glowers at Kili, looking as disappointed as he’d always looked when Kili was ten and twenty and thirty, getting caught pinching Fili or stealing Thorin’s beads or fighting with other dwarvish children. Kili closes his mouth and looks away, because disappointing Dwalin is nearly as bad as disappointing Thorin.

Dwalin shifts, crossing his arms like he’s preparing to give Kili a lecture. “You can’t always have what you want.”

Kili can barely sit through this lecture from Thorin; he can’t sit through it from Dwalin. “What about you?” Kili asks sharply. 

“Kili,” Dwalin warns, but Kili’s tired of being told no when things were never his choice in the first place.

“What about you?” Kili asks again, pushing the issue, always pushing the issue. He takes two steps forward, putting himself close enough to Dwalin that if he leaned, hie would fall against him. “What about what you want?”

Dwalin doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move back, either, as still as a column of stone, and Kili reaches out to touch Dwalin’s face, pushing and pushing and never able to stop pushing.

“You can share my bed.” Kili cups his hands around Dwalin’s head, his fingers spread across the width of Dwalin’s scalp, his thumbs resting along Dwalin’s cheeks. “I’ll give it to you.”

Dwalin takes ahold of Kili’s hands and pulls them away; lets them go and takes a step back. “You don’t know what you’re offering, laddie,” Dwalin says, so gently, as though Kili is a child. 

“I know exactly what I’m offering,” Kili snaps. “I’ve been told my entire life what I have to offer, and that’s what I’m offering to you: my bed and everything that comes with it.”

Dwalin closes his eyes and says, “It’s not so simple.”

“It is.” Kili grabs Dwalin’s hands, just the tips of Dwalin’s fingers, and holds lightly; there’s a horrible moment when Dwalin’s hands tense, like Dwalin is going to pull away. “You can have everything you were promised. My bed, my clout.”

Dwalin does pull away and Kili grabs his hands again, twists his fingers with Dwalin’s. 

“I want to give it to you,” Kili says in a rush. He pulls Dwalin’s hands closer to himself, but he can’t step forward, can’t step back. “Just--please, let me.” 

It’s Dwalin who takes a step forward, turning his hands so that Kili’s are on top. He looks down at Kili’s hands, like he’s looking for something, and then he lifts Kili’s hands, kisses them both. “I promised Thorin,” Dwalin says, holding Kili’s hands close to his face, “that I’d keep you safe. That’s all this is, Kili.”

“You were promised,” Kili tries to say, but Dwalin interrupts him, saying, 

“You know it might not be me. Things are always changing.”

Kili snorts but he can’t manage to meet Dwalin’s eyes. He’s stuck, staring at the way Dwalin’s fingers are wrapped around Kili’s hands. He doesn’t mean to sound so bitter when he says, “It’s always been you. Thorin’s never even thought of anyone else.”

“And you?”

Kili can feel the words swelling up in his throat, words about how some days all he thinks about is Dwalin, and how on other days, he doesn’t think of Dwalin at all. Words about how he doesn’t think he could actually love anyone else, because he’s been loving Dwalin since he was a child and he doesn’t know how to learn to live differently. The words all feel caught in his throat, choked back by his stupid, fat tongue, and he is, quite abruptly, furious. He’s furious at himself for offering himself so easily, and he’s even more furious at Dwalin for refusing him. He tears his hands out of Dwalin’s, turning to storm his way back to his room. He’s taken two steps when Dwalin grabs him, clutching Kili’s wrist painfully tight.

“Don’t ever part in anger, laddie,” Dwalin says sternly, and he’s pulling Kili back towards him. Kili tenses up, digging in his heels and turning further away. “You never know if you’ll see someone again.”

Kili wants to say, _I don’t know if I want to see you again_ , but it is too cruel, even for him. He yanks his arm out of Dwalin’s grip instead, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. His wrist feels cold and bruised, and there’s nothing to keep him here any longer. He doesn’t want to go, but he doesn’t have an excuse to stay, and he is overwhelmed with how quickly things have fallen apart.

“Why do you touch me?” Kili asks before he can think better of it. “If you don’t--if you don’t want me, then why do you keep _touching_ me.”

He can hear Dwalin shifting behind him, Dwalin’s boots stepping on leaves and twigs; Dwalin must be stepping closer. “I want you to be loved,” Dwalin says. He is silent for a moment, then he adds, “I want to love you for your sake, not for Thorin’s.”

Kili sighs. His anger is draining away and he feels utterly exhausted. “And you will?” he asks.

“I will,” Dwalin says. “Just give me time, laddie.” Dwalin grabs Kili’s hand, pulling it close to him, and Kili lets him, not bothering to fight it. Dwalin’s thumb is rubbing against the pulse in Kili’s wrist, like Kili’s a beast to be settled, and when Kili sighs again, letting his shoulders sink and his back relax, Dwalin kisses the center of the palm of Kili’s hand.

Kili thinks it may feel like love. He looks at Dwalin, just out of the corner of his eyes. Dwalin is huge in the darkness of the evening, his shoulders broad and his beard thick, and he’s kissing Kili’s palm like it is something tender, a dwarf-made treasure to be coveted and protected.

“Again,” Kili says, his voice very small and not very dwarvish. Dwalin kisses Kili’s hand again, this time near the top of his palm, and the corner of Dwalin’s mouth teases against the tender skin between Kili’s fingers. A jolt of arousal cuts through Kili’s stomach and Kili, feeling braver and more reckless, demands, “Again.”

Dwalin kisses Kili’s hand, his mouth against the base of Kili’s fingers, then the curve between Kili’s finger and thumb. He kisses the tips of Kili’s fingers and the knuckles on the back of his hand; he kisses the pulse in Kili’s wrist, his beard tickling the inner of Kili’s arm, and every kiss is like a shot of bravery.

Kili is feeling drunk on his bravery when he leans forward, kissing Dwalin’s cheek. Dwalin turns to look at him, his eyebrows lifted like he’s surprised, and Kili kisses Dwalin again, this time on the mouth. Dwalin’s mouth stays closed but Kili keeps kissing him, pressing his mouth against Dwalin’s. When Dwalin’s mouth goes soft beneath his, lips giving beneath Kili’s mouth, Kili feels a rush like fire go roaring through him. 

He feels awkward and ungainly, unable to take his mouth away from Dwalin’s. He tries to touch Dwalin, but he’s not sure where or how. He presses his fingers against Dwalin’s thighs, just below his waist, then he presses his palms against Dwalin’s arms. Dwalin’s eyes are open, staring at Kili’s, and Kili is suddenly struck with how pale Dwalin’s eyes really are, hidden beneath his heavy brows.

“Kili,” Dwalin says against Kili’s mouth and Kili hears himself moan. His body is so hot, tingling and burning, and he wants to be closer to Dwalin. He wants to crawl into Dwalin’s lap, he wants to drag Dwalin’s body down on top of his; he wants to claw his way into Dwalin’s flesh like a dragon clawing its way into a mountain. Aule, he is so hard, his hips trying to rut the empty air like a fool.

Dwalin turns his face away, sending Kili’s mouth skittering across Dwalin’s cheek, into Dwalin’s beard. Kili tries to pull at Dwalin’s clothes, so uncoordinated and unsure, and Dwalin’s hands close around Kili’s arms, pushing Kili away.

“No,” Kili nearly weeps, “no, please, _Dwalin_ , please--” Kili tries to fight against it, trying to push back up against Dwalin’s body, but Dwalin is so much heavier than Kili, and he pushes Kili back until Kili is pressed against a tree. Then Dwalin is stretching his body against Kili’s, the heavy weight of his chest pinning Kili against the tree, and Kili’s hands scrabble at Dwalin’s back.

“You can’t tell Thorin,” Dwalin says, and his words make no sense to Kili’s fractured mind. “ _Kili_. You cannot tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” Kili promises, babbles, “I won’t, I promise, no one, just please--” They’re sliding down, Kili’s tunic twisting as Kili’s back scrapes down the tree. Kili wants Dwalin between his legs, and the ache of his wanting terrifies him.

He wants Dwalin to kiss him; he wants it desperately, madly, and he grabs at Dwalin’s face, curling his fingers into Dwalin’s beard and tugging Dwalin’s face up to his. Dwalin turns his face aside, curling his head and pressing his mouth against Kili’s neck instead, and Kili can’t help the moan of frustration and confusion.

Dwalin’s fingers are dragging down Kili’s arms, the rub of Dwalin’s fingertips and the cloth of Kili’s sleeves leaving sparks in their wake. Kili leans his head back against the tree, pulling his hands slowly over Dwalin’s back, his fingertips spread wide. His hands feel small, not big enough to catch the breadth of Dwalin’s back. 

When Dwalin’s fingers slip beneath the length of Kili’s tunic, tugging at the laces of Kili’s trousers, Kili’s whole body shuts down, stiff and frozen. Dwalin doesn’t notice--he can’t have noticed, because his fingers are undoing the laces of Kili’s trousers, quick and sure, and Dwalin is saying near Kili’s ear, “No one can know.”

“No one will know,” Kili says, forcing the words like they’re embers to swallow, and his fingers convulse over Dwalin’s shoulders.

Dwalin’s fingers circle around Kili’s sex, pulling it free of Kili’s trousers, and Kili’s hips buck against Kili’s will. Kili rolls his head back against the tree, hissing as his hair catches in the bark. His body feels hot and bee-stung, his nerves sparking all along his skin and through his spine, and he doesn’t know how to breathe or how to cope or how to keep himself from looking like a fool or a child.

“Dwalin,” he tries to say, and he mangles it horribly, his voice breaking and panting. His eyes feel hot and wet, like there are tears left to be torn up from his heart, and he doesn’t know why--he’s happy, he’s happy, he should be happy. (But he’s scared, too, scared enough that if he wasn’t so hard he’d probably piss himself, and he doesn’t know why, why is he always so _stupid_ \--)

Dwalin shushes him, his mouth pressed open and soft on Kili’s neck. Kili wants Dwalin’s hands gone but Dwalin’s mouth to stay, and his body feels like a battleground. He tilts his head, trying to pull Dwalin’s head closer to his, because he wants Dwalin closer, closer, _closer_.

“Please,” he says, and he means Dwalin’s mouth. _Please, kiss me_ (or maybe, _Please, listen to me_ ). Dwalin’s mouth stays steady on Kili’s neck, his lips barely moving, and Kili presses his hands against his thighs, digging his fingertips. He’s in the way--he must be in the way, because his wrist keeps bumping against Dwalin’s hand, or maybe Dwalin’s hand keeps bumping into Kili’s wrist. Kili can’t figure out how to move, how to stay out of the way, and Dwalin’s hand is hot and calloused and so much bigger than it’s ever seemed before.

Kili is gasping for breath. He feels like he can’t breathe, like all the air in the forest has turned to smoke and ash, and he gasps, his lungs as tight and empty as when he chased after that deer, all those days ago. He rolls his head to the side, trying to find cool air to breathe, and Dwalin’s mouth follows him, still steady and firm on his neck.

“ _Please_ ,” Kili begs, wanting pain and pleasure and for this to continue and for it to stop and everything is an ugly war inside his head, he can’t make his stupid thoughts shut up, and why is he so stupid, so stupid and ugly and stupid and ugly and stupid and. Dwalin shushes him, like he can hear everything in Kili’s head, all the stupid and ugly words, and Kili tries to grab Dwalin’s hands.

His fingers slip over his own sex, sending a jolt through him, and then he wraps his hands around Dwalin’s, his fingertips digging into Dwalin’s hands. It must be painful, it has to be painful, but Dwalin doesn’t flinch, his lips still firm and barely moving against Kili’s skin. Kili looks down, past his heaving chest and the sharp cracks of light in his eyesight, and when he sees the dark tattoos of Dwalin’s hands from between Kili’s fingers, wrapped around Kili’s sex, it feels like there is liquid gold running through his body, arousal exploding through him. 

He grabs at Dwalin’s shirt, pressing his mouth just below Dwalin’s shoulder. He’s gasping against Dwalin, his breath wet and sobbing, and he can feel his fingers lock up as he comes. His whole body is jolting, out of control, and he bites his tongue until he bleeds, so afraid of what he might say.

“Shh,” Dwalin shushes him, always shushing him, and Kili can’t make his fingers unlock from clutching Dwalin’s shirt. Dwalin moves, pressing his mouth against the top of Kili’s head, and Kili can only make a sound like a wounded animal, high and keening. 

The euphoria is short, so damned short, and when it flees his blood, he feels disgust and a bone-aching despair settle into his body. He tries to touch Dwalin, his fingers clumsily searching for some shot of bravery and euphoria, but Dwalin’s hands catch Kili’s, drawing Kili’s hands away from Dwalin’s trousers.

“No,” Dwalin says in a low voice, and Kili feels on the verge of screaming. He turns his face against Dwalin’s chest, the rough fabric of Dwalin’s shirt scratching his face, and asks,

“You aren’t?” And of course not, of course Dwalin’s not aroused, because Dwalin doesn’t love him, can’t love him, and Kili feels sick to his stomach.

Dwalin doesn’t answer, just kisses the top of Kili’s head, like Kili is a child in need of comforting. Dwalin is so tender, so gentle, his huge fingers petting the bend in Kili’s back and the length of Kili’s thighs. It only makes Kili feels sicker. He needs to get away.

“I need,” Kili says, then he has to clear his throat. “I need to get clean. Before my trousers stain.”

Dwalin lets go of Kili slowly, so damn slowly, and by the time Kili is able to look up at Dwalin’s face, he’s smiling at Dwalin, feeling light-headed and wretched and like his smile would fool even Thorin.

There’s something different in Dwalin’s face, something Kili can’t read, and he prays it’s not regret, because he can’t lose everything like this, breaking everything he’s ever been promised. Kili struggles to his feet, swaying a little as he stands, and Dwalin’s hands are on Kili’s hips, holding him steady. It’s awkward, standing there with his trousers’ laces hanging loose, his tunic twisted around his body, Dwalin’s hands around his waist. Kili touches Dwalin’s hands, then says, “You have to let me go.”

Dwalin follows him all the way to the stream, silent and almost broody, and Kili can feel an itch in his shoulders grow with every step. When they reach the stream, Kili crouches down next to the water and tugs his tunic up, twisting it up underneath his arms so it won’t get wet. The water is cold, a shock to his overheated skin, and he hisses when he rubs his hands under the water, then scrapes his seed out of the hair on his stomach with wet fingers. There are a few spots where his seed dripped onto his trousers, so Kili cups a little water in the palm of his hand and tries to scrub his trousers clean.

When he deems his trousers as clean as can be expected, he stands up, yanking his trousers up. His fingers are cold and numb, clumsy on the laces, and he curses, then bites back a much fouler curse when Dwalin pushes Kili’s hands away, grabbing the laces of Kili’s trousers and pulling them tight, tying them neatly.

Kili watches Dwalin’s fingers move, and shivers when one of Dwalin’s knuckles brushes Kili’s stomach; Dwalin’s fingers are cold and wet, and Kili realizes that Dwalin had to wash his hands, that Dwalin’s hands had been covered in Kili’s seed, and light-headed feeling comes running back into his head full-force.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. Dwalin’s fingers pause, then finish tucking Kili’s laces inside Kili’s trousers. “That I made you,” Kili tries to explain. “I’m sorry.”

Dwalin grabs the hem of Kili’s tunic, dragging it down into place and fixing the lay of Kili’s vest, then Dwalin is grabbing Kili’s face, kissing Kili’s mouth hard and biting. The kiss is over as suddenly as it began, but Kili’s mouth feels bruised and sore, a match for the rest of his body.

“I want to love you.” Dwalin’s voice sounds so hopeless, like Dwalin is facing a dragon all his own, and Kili can’t look at Dwalin’s face.

“There’s time,” Kili says, to Dwalin and to himself. “Until we reach Erebor. There’s--we have time.”

Dwalin kisses Kili like it’s something he has to teach himself and like it’s a battle to be fought. Dwalin’s hands are big, still wet and cold, and when they curl under Kili’s chin, Kili thinks he can smell his seed on them. Kili feels small and fragile and young, fear and longing curling into a feeling he thinks might be love of dwarves.

Dwalin kisses Kili for a long time, until Kili’s face is raw from the rub of Dwalin’s beard. Kili’s hands hang limp by his sides the whole time, his fingertips numb, and when Dwalin lets go of Kili, Kili goes to press the cold water of the stream against his face. He holds water against his face until his chin and cheeks go numb, then he splashes water over all his face. He can still feel the burn from the rub of Dwalin’s beard and he hopes that the redness is hidden underneath his own stubbled beard. 

Dwalin fixes Kili’s hair, twisting Kili’s hair back from his face and refastening the clasp. Kili touches Dwalin’s shirt gingerly then, when Dwalin says nothing, adjusts it, smoothing the sleeves over Dwalin’s arms. They walk back to the main buildings in silence, and as they get closer to where the other dwarves are, Dwalin hangs back. By the time they’ve passed the last free-standing pavilion, Kili is walking in front and Dwalin is trailing behind, like a very large and possibly feral dog.

Kili is near the wide, open hallways when he sees Bilbo and Bilbo sees him. 

“Oh, Kili,” Biblo says cheerfully, “Good evening. I thought everyone would be asleep already.”

Kili has a horrible feeling that Bilbo knows everything that Kili’s done, by seeing it in Kili’s face or in Kili’s clothes or maybe just by sneaking around, doing his burglaring things. “Bilbo,” Kili says, feeling defensive. “What are you doing out so late, then?”

Bilbo looks taken back and says hastily, “Oh, well, I was in the library--they have so many books, you know, of all sorts of things. I’ve found the loveliest idea for my garden, quite clever!--but then I realized I was hungry, and when I came out here to find something to eat, I saw that it was far later than I’d thought.”

Bilbo looks sheepish by the end of his explanation, and Kili sneaks a quick peek over his shoulder. He can’t see Dwalin anywhere, so he decides to take Bilbo’s story at face value.

“Well,” he says, as something of a peace-offering, lie though it may be, “I’d lost my soapstone, so I went to look for it, but.” He shrugs and Bilbo gives him a surprisingly kind smile.

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo says politely. The hobbit is standing there, almost rocking on his strange, furry feet, and then he’s saying, “Would you like to sit and talk for a while? Only, I’m not sure I want to go back to my room yet.”

The chance to think of something other than Dwalin’s body and Dwalin’s mouth and Dwalin’s hands (and Kili’s fear, the stinking, painful fear that had clenched tight in his stomach) is something he can’t pass up, so Kili nods, says, “Of course.” Bilbo nearly runs down the stairs, coming to throw himself onto the grass beside where Kili is standing. Kili sinks down to sit next to him and asks, cautiously, “Why don’t you want to go back to your room?”

“Oh, well.” Bilbo seems to flush as he fidgets. “I’m sharing a room with Nori.”

“Nori?” Kili has to turn his face away to hide his grin. “Make sure he doesn’t nick any of your things.”

“No, no, that isn’t it. It’s just, well, his brothers. I thought, since I was rooming with only one, it wouldn’t be a problem, but then Ori is always coming over, and then Dori is following them, and they seem to fight an awful lot, and they get rather, well, loud about it.”

Kili laughs so hard he nearly falls over, because that is so very much like Ori and his brothers. He nearly gets his laughing under control, but then he sees Bilbo’s put-upon expression and starts laughing all over again. When he finally does get himself under control, Bilbo is smiling again, though the smile looks a little tense.

“Did you know them? Before the quest, I mean,” Bilbo asks, and Kili rubs his stomach, feeling sore from all the laughing.

“Yes, of course. They moved to the Blue Mountains when Ori was young. He’s about my age,” Kili says. “Our mothers were close, when they lived in Erebor, so Mother was always going over to visit once they arrived.”

“Oh.” Bilbo looks surprised and pleased. “It’s nice, that they remained close after all those years, isn’t it?”

Kili frowns, a little confused, then says, “No, I mean--Mother used to go visit with Dori. She still does, actually. She’s only a few years younger than him. No, their mother--Dori’s and Nori’s and Ori’s mother, I mean--their mother died a long time ago. Just after Ori was born, I think.”

Bilbo makes a very sympathetic noise and Kili feels a wave of affection for their kind little hobbit.

“It’s alright,” he says, trying to cheer Bilbo up. “Nori’s a bit of a mess, I suppose, but Mother absolutely loves Dori, so they’re doing alright. I mean, Mother does what she can to help Dori clean up Nori’s messes, and Ori always seemed to be in our home. So it’s always worked out well.”

“Dwarves seem to be very close to one another,” Biblo says, and Kili takes that as an excuse to say goodnight, saying,

“Yes, very close. So close that Fili will be looking for me by now, so I should....”

Bilbo waves him away very politely, and Kili bows so low in return that Bilbo laughs and throws a few leaves of plucked grass at him.

Fili, it turns out, is not looking for Kili at all. He’s sitting at the foot of the bed, thoroughly engrossed in a book, though he does look up when Kili comes in.

“What were you doing?” Fili asks. Kili tries very hard to look nonchalant, and feels as though he is failing at it.

“I went to look for my soapstone,” he says, half made of lies and half made of truth. “I thought I left it by the fire yesterday, but it wasn’t there. Or at least, I couldn’t find it. Anyway, I ran into Bilbo on my way back, and we got to talking, and you wouldn’t guess who he’s sharing a room with--”

“Nori,” Fili interrupts, and Kili makes a face at him. “I was with Ori earlier and he told me. Ori,” Fili adds, lifting the book, “lent me his book. The, uh, company journal? You have to read the part about the trolls. And,” Fili has a suspicious looking smile, “you should see the picture he drew of Dwalin. I think he may have a crush.”

Kili feels a wave of jealousy, ugly and angry, and snaps, “He’d better not, if he doesn’t want any problems.” At Fili’s too-amused look, Kili tries to sound calmer. “Besides, his brothers wouldn’t let him, especially Dori. He’s too young.”

“And you’re not?”

Kili feels his face go red, the same old embarrassment, but now with a thick wave of guilt. “Shove over,” he mutters, and he climbs up onto the bed next to Fili, demanding, “Show me the picture, then.”

It is a very good picture, actually, and Kili admires it for a long time. Finally, when Fili’s trying to prise the book of Kili’s hands, Kili says, “You should tear it out. Tell Ori a mouse got at it, or something.”

Fili laughs in Kili’s face and Kili rolls his eyes, shoving the book back into Fili’s lap. When Fili has fallen asleep, though, Kili cuts the page out of the journal, taking care to take each piece of the page out of the binding, until it is like the picture was never there. He looks at the picture for an even longer time, squinting through the darkness of the room. He looks for the littlest details, like the narrowing of Dwalin’s scars and the shadow of Dwalin’s tattoos. It is a very good picture, better than anything Kili could ever imagine sketching out. Kili folds it up carefully and wraps it in a scrap of oilcloth, then slips it into an inner pocket of his vest. 

He returns the book to Ori in the morning, feeling all over with guilt but only a little ashamed.


	5. Chapter 5

The fortnight passes in an unsettled tempo. The time Kili spends alone with Fili seems to drag on, the hours slowly, slowly dwindling away as they fletch arrows and mend clothing and talk about the Blue Mountains. The time spent with Thorin passes so much more quickly. Kili feels dragged along in Thorin’s wake, always feeling a few steps behind. Thorin is a brutal taskmaster when he sets to it, and he oversees everyone’s preparations with a critical eye. 

Often, Kili is sitting in his borrowed room, lazily spinning an arrow to test its lines, when Fili rushes in, saying, “Thorin wants to see to your weapons,” or “Thorin wants to know if you’ve mended your coat,” or once, “Thorin is sending letters home to the Blue Mountains. He said you’re to write to Mother.”

Kili writes a very long letter, all about the road and the company and their Dear Master Baggins. He complains about Fili because he knows it will make her smile and he leaves out all mentions of trolls and orcs because he knows it will make her worry. He even draws a few pictures, rudimentary sketches of the cave they slept in and the hills of the Shire and the heights of Rivendell. He sends her his love, all of his love, and tells her that he’ll see her again in Erebor; he signs his name and draws his crest beside it, like a proper dwarf prince would.

“Hurry up,” Fili complains. Fili’s letter is already sealed with Fili’s crest, tied with a beautiful ribbon that Fili must have got off an elf, or more likely off Bilbo. 

“I have to seal it,” Kili says, and Fili grabs the letter from Kili, folding it.

“We’ll put it with mine, it’s fine.” Fili slips Kili’s letter beneath the ribbon, smooths the two letters together, and adds, “Don’t forget, Thorin wants us to eat with him tonight.”

Fili leaves in the same rush with which he came in, and Kili feels a little like he’s drowning in the sudden silence of the bedroom. Without the echo of Thorin in the room, everything seems to slow down. Kili lies on the floor, tired and lazy, and listens to thudding heartbeat of stone, beating against his ear.

When Kili grows irritable and lonely, the heartbeat of stone hammering at his nerves, he retreats outside. He wanders Elrond’s grounds, looking critically at the strangely carved stone benches and the flimsy looking architecture. He throws stones into the streams, disturbing the fish and sending ripples rushing away on the current, and wonders if he could get away with throwing stones at the elves, too. Dwalin always seems to find him at his loneliest, stranded between one pavilion and another, and he always pulls Kili deeper into the trees, his thick fingers wrapped around Kili’s wrist.

Kili kisses Dwalin beneath the trees and Dwalin lets him. Dwalin barely kisses back, his lips quiet and closed beneath Kili’s, but his hands touch Kili, running along Kili’s shoulders and curling around the small of Kili’s back. Dwalin touches Kili’s hair most of all, taking out the clasp and parting Kili’s hair, running it through his fingers again and again. The touches make Kili’s stomach feel like it’s dropping from beneath him, sickness and fear and longing and an aching love, and he can’t ever look Dwalin in the eyes.

Dwalin pulls Kili to lie on top of him, Kili’s chin resting over Dwalin’s heart, and Kili listens to Dwalin talk. He feels the movement of Dwalin’s chest ripple through his whole body, the shaking and the stillness, the shaking and the stillness. Kili feels sturdy here, his body pressed against Dwalin’s, Dwalin’s body anchored to the ground. Kili sinks his fingers into Dwalin’s beard, his fingertips finding the warmth of Dwalin’s skin, and he kisses Dwalin as gently as he can.

The green light of the trees breaks over Dwalin’s skin, like light fractured by emeralds, and Kili presses his lips to the scars on Dwalin’s head. He tells Dwalin’s scars all his secrets, whispering them without breath, his mouth moving without sound against Dwalin’s skin. Dwalin takes Kili’s words, holds them tightly, and never says a word, as patient and timeless as stone, as comforting as the mountains Kili was born beneath.

And still, still, Kili wants more, as jealous and angry as a dwarf can be. He wants to break Dwalin, to send Dwalin into a frenzy. He wants Dwalin’s mouth on him, open and hot and wet. He wants Dwalin moving beneath him, alive and yearning, and he wants to sink against the width of Dwalin’s hips. He wants Dwalin’s jealous rage, to be consumed by something other than guilt and the fear that he’s shattered whatever was still between them.

“I’ll love you,” Dwalin rumbles beneath Kili, the steadiness of the mountains hidden in his ribcage (but mountains are never steady, mountains are run through with faults). “Just give it time, boy.”

x

They’re two days out from Rivendell, all settled in for the night, when Bilbo plops himself on the ground next to Kili, stretches out his legs, and says, “You look at him an awful lot.”

Kili blinks down at his whittling then looks sideways at Bilbo. “Look at who?” he asks cautiously. Fili fidgets on Kili’s other side, leaning a little heavily on Kili’s shoulder, obviously listening in, the nosy sneak.

“At Dwalin,” Bilbo says, his face wrinkled into a frown. “You stare at him, really.”

Kili can _feel_ Fili laughing against his body. He shoves an elbow into Fili’s stomach and hisses, “Well, there’s nothing improper about that.”

Bilbo looks startled and a little afraid, like he thinks Kili is going to try to eat him alive. Kili grits his teeth for patience, hunkering in his shoulders as Fili reaches over him, grabbing Bilbo’s arm before Bilbo can get the idea to flee.

“No,” Fili whispers, and he’s still laughing, damn him, “it’s just that Kili’s always shy about Dwalin.”

“I am _not_ ,” Kili argues hopelessly. He might as well be asking the stars not to shine because Fili ignores him, reeling Bilbo in and whispering,

“Kili’s in love with him. Hopelessly in love.”

Bilbo’s face is a thing to see. He looks equal parts confused, startled, and horrified. It angers Kili even more, makes him feel that familiar wave of embarrassment and shame, newly colored with guilt, and Kili grits his teeth even harder, until his jaw creaks.

“With Dwalin?” Bilbo whispers back to Fili. “Really?”

“Of course. He’s promised to him, so it’s nothing he should be embarrassed over,” here Fili cuffs at Kili’s arm and Kili makes a point to turn his face away, “but it is a little much. How much he moons, I mean.”

“I don’t _moon_ ,” Kili snaps and, as always, is promptly ignored. 

“Promised? Like an engagement?” Bilbo has apparently lost whatever fear he had for Kili’s irritation and is scooting over on the dirt until he’s sitting between Kili and Fili, facing them both. He looks interested now, like he always does when someone is explaining one dwarvish custom or another. “Kili and Dwalin, really?” 

Fili hums an agreement, saying, “Yes, well, Thorin’s the one who decided. He does most of the deciding, especially with the Family.”

Kili can practically hear the capitalization in Fili’s voice; he rolls his eyes and, for good measure, rolls his head, too. No one’s bothering to look at him, though, so he takes an angry little sliver of wood out of the pony he’s carving. It’s his third pony in a week, and he’s pretty sure that he’ll shatter this one, too, when trying to carve the joints to make the legs prance.

“The family?” Bilbo repeats, and Aule, Bilbo repeats things more often than Oin, and Oin at least has the excuse of his ear trumpet. 

“Royal family,” Fili prompts, and Bilbo’s mouth opens then closes. Kili sneaks a look at Fili, then looks back at Bilbo.

“You did know that Thorin is our uncle, didn’t you?” Kili asks cautiously, because Bilbo tends to become quite loud when he learns something new, and Kili doesn’t want the entire camp to wake up and hear this stupid little conversation.

Bilbo’s mouth opens and closes once more, then Bilbo leans forward, far too close for Kili’s comfort, and hisses, “He’s your uncle?”

“We’re mostly all related,” Fili says, and Kili interjects, “Fili is his heir, of course.”

“Balin and Dawlin are third cousins, once removed,” Fili explains, ignoring Kili’s interruption. “So are Oin and Gloin, though they’re first cousins with Balin and Dwalin.”

“And Dori, Nori, and Ori,” Kili says blandly, “though they’re fifth cousins twice removed, and from their mother’s side. Too distant for Thorin to bother arranging their attachments.”

“So the only ones we’re not related to are Bofur, Bombur, and Bifur, though I suppose if you looked far enough back.” 

Kili shrugs, tucking his head down as he takes another sliver of wood out, shaping the pony’s front legs. “All it really matters,” he mutters, “is that the family is, well, solidified. Combining the family resources, keeping it in the family.”

Fili elbows Kili roughly and Kili elbows him right back; Fili tugs Kili’s hair and Kili drops his knife and wood, turning to jab his fist into Fili’s stomach. They’re tussling when Bilbo clears his throat and says, “There aren’t many dwarvish women, then?”

The question is enough of a non sequitur that Kili is left lying flat on the ground, Fili’s elbow pinching his side. He rolls his head to the side, trying to follow Bilbo’s logic, then snorts and says, “No, Fili’s going to marry a girl. He’s going to marry Dain’s niece, the one with the pretty beard.”

“A third cousin by marriage,” Fili says in a hoarse voice (Kili isn’t sure if it is because he’s embarrassed or if it is because Kili got a jab in there). Kili desperately wishes the light was better, because he’s almost certain Fili is blushing. 

“But Kili won’t....” Bilbo’s voice fades away and Kili has to struggle upwards so he can check and make sure Bilbo is still there and hasn’t been kidnapped by wargs or another set of mountain trolls. 

“No,” Kili says after a moment, “I won’t.” Fili is looking at him sharply and Kili turns his face away, scowls at nothing. “The lines have to remain pure. Third and fourth cousins, that doesn’t matter so much, but the line of Durin needs to be carried down through the best. Faulty lines make faulty rocks.”

Fili grabs Kili’s wrist and Kili half-heartedly tries to tug it away. “Anyway,” Kili says after a moment, when Fili’s still holding onto his wrist, “I wouldn’t want to marry Dain’s niece even if Thorin asked me to. I’ve heard she has a horrible singing voice.”

Fili laughs loud enough that he wakes up Thorin, who scolds them both for the rest of their watch. Bilbo really must be a burglar, because he sneaks away before Thorin notices he’s even there, and Kili and Fili have to sit there, in the dirt, and apologize to Thorin for something that, in Kili’s opinion, isn’t even their fault.

x

When the company stops to rest beside a little stream in the early afternoon the next day, Bilbo sidles over to Fili and Kili. Kili, remembering well the smarting pain of Thorin’s scolding last night, isn’t feeling very kindly concerning their burglar, and he’s thinking of getting up and moving further up the stream, to sit by Dori and Ori. Fili grabs Kili’s arm before Kili can even grab his pack, though, and Kili sighs heavily, sinking back down into his spot.

“What is it, Bilbo?” he asks, more than a little unkindly, and Bilbo frowns.

“Well,” Bilbo says, “I have been thinking, and I was wondering if he felt the same way about you?”

Kili snaps his head around, fast enough that he feels something crack in his neck, and looks around himself wildly. Dwalin is far up the stream, talking to Balin and Thorin, and the closest dwarf is Nori, who is paces away, talking to Gloin. Relatively sure that no one will hear, he turns back and says, “What has that got to do with anything?”

“It just seems rather unfair, if you’re attached to him but he doesn’t feel as attached to you.”

For a moment, Kili can remember the way the deer’s blood had felt on his hands, hot and slick, when Dwalin had said he didn’t love him. He rubs his thumb over the knuckles of his first finger and says, “That doesn’t matter.”

Fili adds, “He’d be stupid to say no. He’s only fifth in line, but if he marries Kili, he’s second in line with Kili.”

Kili snorts, because Fili is always so stupid about these things. It’s like he doesn’t even know how their family works. “He’s seventh. You’re forgetting Dain’s sons again.”

“It seems,” Bilbo says slowly, “rather complicated--”

“It’s not,” Kili interrupts, irritated and tired and feeling ready to scream. “Crawling into my bed is the easiest way to get to the throne, and Thorin knew that, so he made sure it would at least be someone he could trust.”

“Kili!” Fili roars it as he grabs Kili’s arm, sounding as angry as Dis does whenever Kili’s done something incredibly stupid. Fili isn’t Dis, though, Fili’s just his brother, barely five years older than him, and Kili is sick of this conversation, and is sick of their faces, and is sick of Fili trying to make everything sound better than it is.

“Get off!” Kili shouts back, wresting himself out of Fili’s grip. Fili fumbles, trying to grab the hem of Kili’s coat, and Kili throws himself backwards, stumbling over the rocky slope. He turns and stomps through the scraggly brush to where the little pathway lays, clenching his hands into fists and telling himself that if Fili even tries to stop him, he’ll punch him so hard Fili won’t be able to stand.

He’s sitting on the middle of the pathway, adding detail to the wooden pony’s mane, when Thorin approaches him. He’s already nicked his thumb and he’ll probably just break the stupid carving, what with trying to carve detail when angry, but the rest of his things are back beside the stream, tangled up with Fili’s things.

“Kili,” Thorin says, and Kili jabs at the pony’s mane, digging out the line of what he thinks might be the pony’s reins. “Kili, look at me.”

Kili clenches his hands into fists, then opens them, dropping the half-finished pony and knife to the ground. He doesn’t look up, though--he can’t look up, not at Thorin, not right now, when he feels like he did when he was fifty-something and Thorin said he wasn’t very much like a dwarf; not when he’s all guilt and shame and the fear of Thorin knowing all of Kili’s faults just by looking at him.

Thorin doesn’t say anything, and doesn’t move, either, and Kili finally gives up, looking first at Thorin’s boots, set firmly in the dirt, then up at Thorin’s face. Thorin’s arms are crossed and he’s staring down at Kili; Kili looks away.

“It won’t happen again,” Kili says, and he means it--he really wants to mean it.

“What won’t happen again?” Thorin asks.

“Yelling at others. Storming off.” Kili hesitates, then sums up, “Throwing fits.”

Thorin sighs heavily, which somehow only makes Kili feel worse. Thorin sinks down to the ground, sitting at a strange angle from Kili, and Kili sneaks a look at him, then looks away. Thorin looks tired and frustrated and Kili has the feeling it’s a look Thorin has specifically because of him.

“You and Fili have been fighting more,” Thorin says after a few moments. Kili stiffens and shakes his head, because as angry as Fili may make him (and as often as he may dream about punching Fili), he doesn’t want to blame any of this on Fili, because Fili’s not the one at fault. 

“It wasn’t Fili,” he says. His hands feel awkward and empty, so he grabs his half-carved pony, turns it over in his hands.

“The hobbit, then?”

“No--” Kili runs his thumb over the pony’s front legs, the rough, unshaped joints and smooth hooves. “No, it was my fault. I was out of line, it won’t happen again.”

Thorin doesn’t say anything, and this is always the worst part of any conversation with Thorin. Kili doesn’t know what to say, or even if he should say anything. It feels like he’s walking a precipice, trying to keep Thorin’s love despite Kili’s many faults. His ears are burning from the silence when Thorin finally gestures and says, “Turn around.”

Kili turns awkwardly, his coat twisting around his legs and midsection. It takes him a while to get properly situated, tugging his coat loose and trying to find his knife. When he finally settles, Thorin touches the side of Kili’s neck and asks, “Finished?”

Kili nods, feeling his flush rise up again. Thorin makes a soft sound behind him, then pulls Kili’s hair loose of its clasp, parting it and reparting it between his fingers. “It will all come out,” Kili says. They always do, his braids falling apart only hours after they’ve been put together. 

“No matter,” Thorin says. His knuckles are passing over Kili’s neck, quick and close together. A small braid, most likely, thin and delicate and easily hidden at the nape of Kili’s neck. “I chose Dwalin to protect you. I knew Dain would protect Fili, but you--I needed someone for whom you would be the first priority.”

“I know.” Kili’s voice sounds small, even to him. “I didn’t--” Thorin’s hand rests heavily on Kili’s shoulder and Kili shuts his mouth. After a moment, Thorin’s fingers begin moving again, plaiting another tiny braid.

“I trusted Dwalin. He had always been loyal to me, and I knew he would do well by you.”

Kili isn’t stupid, he notices how Thorin’s sentences are increasingly past tense. He feels a thrill of fear, still overrun with the guilt he’s felt since Rivendell, and he asks, “But?”

“But.” Thorin sighs and drops what must be a braid. Kili can barely feel it tickling his neck. “But things are never certain, not for younger siblings.” Thorin finger-combs through Kili’s hair, more like he’s petting Kili than anything, and says, “Your life is very unfair, and I am sorry for it, Kili.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Kili says firmly, because it doesn’t. It’s what he’s expected to do, and if his worth is tied up in his marriage bed, at least he has worth.

“It should.” Thorin runs his hands through Kili’s hair one last time, then rests his hands on Kili’s shoulders. “You should get your things,” Thorin says. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”

Kili takes it as the dismissal it must be, climbing to his feet. Thorin reaches out, brushing dirt from the back of Kili’s coat, then Thorin says, “Go on, then.”

Fili is still sitting in the same spot, but Bilbo is gone, probably sent running by guilt or awkwardness. Kili feels only the smallest bit badly for it. He digs his things free of Fili’s, his quiver and his packs. He’s still trying to find his waterskin when Thorin calls for everyone to get up and get moving. The streambed is overcome with mild chaos, everyone refilling their waterskins and shouldering their bags.

Kili keeps his head down, fiddling with the straps of his bags as dwarves and one small hobbit filter by, heading back to the path and Thorin. Fili hesitates near Kili, certainly looking for a sign that Kili forgives him, or something like that; Kili doesn’t want to forgive him, not yet. He pointedly ignores Fili, staring down at his buckle and dragging his thumbnail through the delicate grooves of his crest, carved into the buckle’s frame.

Fili sighs heavily and leaves before Kili’s traced half of his crest. Kili sneaks a glance up, watching as Fili lumbers slowly through the brush. Fili will go to sulk near Thorin, Kili knows, because whenever Fili doesn’t get his way, he’s even more dramatic that Kili, all pointed sighs and ridiculous self-flagellation.

Nearly everyone is gone now: Dori is heading slowly back to the path, picking up forgotten or mislaid items (they probably, Kili thinks, all belong to Nori and Bifur). Dwalin is the last dwarf behind Dori, collected dwarves the way Dori collects forgotten belongings. Kili waits for Dori to pass him, then he stands, waiting for Dwalin to reach him.

“Kiss me,” he says before Dwalin can greet him. His demand doesn’t seem to faze Dwalin, who stops beside Kili and leans in, kissing Kili’s mouth firmly. Dwalin’s mouth is barely open, lips parting the smallest bit, and Kili leans in return, kissing Dwalin’s lower lip. Kili doesn’t dare touch Dwalin, not with his shaking, grasping hands, because rumors fly fast and fierce, even in companies as loyal as Thorin’s, and as ruinous as a kiss may be, his hands on Dwalin would be even more so.

“Kili, hurry up!”

It is Thorin. Kili kisses Dwalin’s lower lip again, as softly as he can, then leans back so he can look. Dwalin’s mouth is still a little open, his lower lip a little dark. As Kili watches, Dwalin licks his lips, his tongue pressing against his lower lip for a moment. Kili wonders if Dwalin’s lip feels hot, as tender and bruised as Kili seems to feel every time he is with Dwalin. 

“Your face is flushed,” Dwalin tells Kili. He touches Kili’s face, cupping Kili’s left cheek in his palm, and Kili turns his face into it. Dwalin peers at Kili’s face like he’s searching for something, then he pushes Kili’s hair back with his other hand, ducking his head to press a open-mouthed kiss to Kili’s neck. 

Kili feels a shudder rake through his body, leaving him quivering, and he can’t stop himself from grabbing at Dwalin’s furs, fisting his hands against Dwalin’s chest. He pushes Dwalin away with closed fists, his elbows feeling like they’re quaking with the effort. Dwalin pulls back, his mouth and then his hands, and his finger brushes Kili’s neck as he pulls away, touching the place Dwalin’s mouth had pressed.

Kili must look like a rabbit--he feels like a rabbit, staring at Dwalin’s mouth like it is waiting to devour him. His heart is pounding at jackrabbit speeds, thundering painfully against his ribcage, and he thinks, absurdly, that the weight of Dwalin’s body pressing him down would slow his heart, hold his ribcage steady. His hands are loosening and tightening in Dwalin’s furs, like a cat kneading its claws, and he imagines what it would feel like, to drag Dwalin down with him, to wrap his legs around Dwalin, to feel Dwalin’s weight pin him to the ground. Kili clenches his hands tight against Dwalin’s chest, then pulls away, turning and stumbling down to the stream.

He’s dunking his head for the second time when he hears Thorin bark, “Kili!”

He pulls his head out of the water, fast enough to make himself dizzy, and grabs his hair, pulling it back as he looks over. Thorin is standing near Dwalin, his feet planted and his shoulders straight, like he is ready for a battle.

“What are you doing?” Thorin calls. 

Kili doesn’t duck his head, because he knows that will be a beacon of guilt to Thorin; he stands, tilting his head so his wet hair hangs to the side, then twists it all together, wringing water from his hair. The water splatters on the ground, onto Kili’s boot, and Kili wrings his hair again, then shakes it loose, tilts his head to the other side, and wrings his hair again.

“He needed to cool his head,” Dwalin says gruffly, when it must be obvious Kili is going to say nothing. Dwalin is standing at angles to both Kili and Thorin, like he’s watching neither of them, and he’s leaning on his warhammer, his shoulders bowed. 

Thorin turns to face Dwalin fully, and Kili sees the way Dwalin’s shoulders tighten, straightening.

“Why,” Thorin asks, “would he need to cool his head?”

Dwalin shrugs, the motion looking smooth and unworried, but Kili can see the way Dwalin’s hands are tightening on the warhammer, like it is a shield between him and Thorin. Thorin must see it, too, because Thorin’s chin lifts and Thorin shouts, “Balin, go ahead and lead the company!”

There is a wordless shout from the direction of the path, presumably the affirmative from Balin. Kili suddenly wants, very much so, to be with the rest of the company. His hair tickles the back of his neck, cold and wet, and the delicate braids that Thorin plaited feel like the thin legs of insects on his skin. Kili shivers and the motion catches Thorin’s eye, causing Thorin to turn and stare at Kili.

The hunted-rabbit feel comes juddering back into Kili’s chest and he takes an involuntary step back. Thorin lifts his eyebrows, which makes Kili feel as though Thorin knows exactly what Kili has been doing.

“Kili,” Thorin says, “go and join Balin. We’ll catch you up.”

Kili nods, stepping sideways, and Thorin adds, “Walk with Fili. He’s about to flagellate himself for whatever he said to you.”

“Yes, Thorin,” Kili says. He sneaks a peek at Dwalin but Dwalin is looking straight ahead, at a spot beyond Thorin. Kili looks back at Thorin, who is staring levelly at Kili, and he feels himself begin to blush again, beneath his cold, damp skin. He edges past Thorin, then jogs off toward the path.

“What were you doing?” he hears Thorin hiss, but he can’t make out Dwalin’s answer; he’s grateful for that.

The company has been walking for a nearly two hours before Thorin and Dwalin catch them up. Fili’s in a better mood, whistling and even carrying one of Kili’s bags in apology. Kili thinks he was far more in the wrong than Fili, but he’s not above taking advantage of Fili’s guilty moods; Fili is like a packhorse, cheerful even under the heaviest weights, and so Kili happily gives up the bag that always cuts the most into Kili’s shoulder, as a “gesture of forgiveness”.

When Dwalin and Thorin rejoin the group, Dwalin passes straight by Kili and Fili, jogging up the line until he’s abreast with Balin. Thorin stops near Kili and Fili, though, and walks beside them in silence. When Kili dares to look, Thorin doesn’t look angry; his face is utterly blank, like his thoughts are somewhere far away, and that only makes Kili feel more uncertain. Thorin even seems to affect Fili’s mood--Fili’s whistle grows quieter and quieter until it dies away all together, and Fili sneaks as many glances at Thorin’s face as Kili does.

When Thorin calls a halt for the night, he grabs Kili’s arm and pulls Kili out of the line. The rest of the company walks past Thorin and Kili, looking at them curiously before going on to set up the camp. Thorin watches the dwarves pass them by, and Kili watches Thorin, looking for some sign of anger in Thorin’s mouth or eyes. When the last dwarf has passed them, Thorin turns and walks back down the pathway, pulling Kili with him. Kili follows meekly behind; there may not be anger in Thorin’s face, but Kili knows that there is guilt in his own face.

“Kili,” Thorin says, when they’ve gone far enough away that Kili can barely see the sparks of the fire Oin and Gloin are building. 

Kili opens his mouth to say something, but his voice is gone, fled with whatever common sense he once had. He nods instead, trying to look contrite while staring at Thorin’s ear.

Thorin sighs, that same heavy, tired sigh he sighed early in the day, the last time Kili did something to worry him, and Kili feels all over with guilt. “I know your life is unfair,” Thorin says, just like he had in the early afternoon, “and I’m sorry for it, but you must be cautious.”

Thorin goes quiet, like he’s waiting for something, and Kili finally manages to blurt out, “Yes, Thorin.”

Kili thinks that is the end of it, but Thorin says his name again, saying, “Kili,” in a voice far more stern and grim, a king rather than an uncle. 

“Your body,” Thorin says, “doesn’t belong to you,” and Kili, horrified at himself, at what he’s done, says,

“I know.”

Thorin’s hand tightens on Kili’s arm, like a king clasping the arm of a soldier, and Kili can feel his body go rigid, in fear and love and an ache to gain the respect of Thorin, to be a prince worthy of Erebor.

“Don’t disappoint me,” Thorin says, stern and grim but still so gentle, like he believes Kili can do well, like he believes that Kili can be what Erebor needs.

“I won’t,” Kili swears desperately. He needs Thorin to believe it--he needs himself to believe it. “Uncle, I won’t--I promise.”

Thorin looks at Kili for a long time, like he’s looking for something in Kili’s face, the way Dwalin had hours before. Kili can feel a quivering in his body, different-but-the-same, and it is so hard to look at Thorin’s eyes. When Thorin turns to return to the camp, Kili follows behind him like a well-behaved shadow, wishing he was less like himself and more like Fili. He keeps his head down the rest of the evening, staying closer to Thorin than he ever has before. He is careful not to look for Dwalin, and even more careful not to wonder if Dwalin is looking for him.

When Kili finally goes to bed, Fili drags his bedroll close to Kili’s, lying on his side so he’s facing Kili. Kili tries to scowl at Fili, but he doesn’t manage more than a bit of a grimace. 

“What’s happened?” Fili whispers. “You’re acting strange, sticking to Thorin like a burr.”

“Nothing,” Kili mumbles, hoping that if he looks supremely disinterested, Fili will let it go. Fili looks disbelieving, but he keeps his silence. Kili takes that as the boon it is and rolls over, pulling the blanket over his head.

He doesn’t let himself think of Dwalin, or Rivendell, or even the stream. He thinks of Erebor instead, the beautiful halls Dis used to describe, the throne of the kings and the heart of the mountain. When he dreams, he dreams of Thorin’s kingdom, reclaimed and blessed by Aule.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is on a bit of a hiatus on the kink-meme, so I've cut down updates here to once every other week. Sorry. :(


	6. Chapter 6

The thunder battle marks the third day in crossing the Misty Mountains as the worst day of Kili’s admittedly short life; it only gets worse from there.

When the company has been bundled into the cave, Kili finds himself holding onto whatever bit of Fili is closest to him: the hem of Fili’s coat, the bags still slung over his shoulder, the hood of his tunic. It must be irritating, Kili thinks dazedly. He’s clinging to Fili like a child clinging to his mother’s skirts, and it keeps pulling Fili up short, making both Fili and Kili clumsy.

Fili turns, probably to look for Thorin, and his wet hair drags over his shoulder. Kili’s hands spasm and he has to reach out, grab onto Fili’s hair and the fur of Fili’s coat. 

Fili curses when Kili pulls his hair and Kili mutters an apology, but he can’t let go; his hand tightens. Fili is twisting his head, trying to pull his hair out of Kili’s hands, and Kili says, his voice hoarse, “I’m sorry.”

“Then let go,” Fili says, looking as wet and irritated as the old cat Dori used to keep. He grabs hold of Kili’s hands, prying Kili’s fingers loose from his hair. When he’s free, he start to step away and Kili can’t help but lunge out, grasp at the edge of Fili’s coat _again_. It pulls Fili up short, makes Fili look at Kili.

“Kili,” Fili says, and his voice is much more gentle than it was before. “You’re shaking. Are you hurt?”

Kili shakes his head, clears his throat and says, “No, I’m not, I just--” He tries to make himself let go and doesn’t really succeed. 

Fili grabs Kili’s shoulders, pushing him backwards and down, and says, “Kili, you need to sit down.” 

Kili sits down with a huff, twisting the edge of Fili’s coat between his fingers. Fili is crouched in front of him, looking at Kili like he’s searching for some horrible head wound, and Kili huffs again, says, “Stop it, I’m not--It’s just. You fell, and I couldn’t do anything.”

He can hear his voice shaking and he doesn’t want anyone else to hear it. He tucks his head in closer to Fili and says, “I could hear Thorin. He was screaming.”

Fili snorts, which is really not what Kili expected. “I could hear him, too,” Fili says, and he sounds like he’s about to laugh, which isn’t right, because Fili and the stone giants and the rain-- “He was shouting your name.”

“He wasn’t!” Kili snaps, horrified and not at all amused. Fili starts giggling, looking a little demented.

“He was, he did,” Fili says between giggles. Kili lets go of Fili’s coat and gives him a good push, knocking Fili over onto his back. Fili stops giggling, but he still has that demented looking smile on his face. Fili reaches out, patting Kili’s shin, and Kili thinks long and hard about kicking Fili. 

“I was worried about you,” Kili says accusingly. Fili’s hand grips Kili’s shin and the smile on Fili’s face twists.

“I know,” Fili says. His voice is grave again, and it’s maybe shaking, just a little. “I know, Kili.”

Fili is still lying on the ground minutes later, his hand wrapped around Kili’s shin, when Thorin comes over. There’s only one lamp lit, set in what is approximately the middle of the cave, and it casts shadows over Thorin, turning his face into strange masks. Thorin crouches in front of the two of them and he looks utterly ragged, the shadows deepening the lines on his face.

“Are you hurt? Kili, Fili?” Thorin asks, and he’s asking both of them but he’s only looking at Fili. Thorin’s hand, Kili notices, is open and held awkwardly by Thorin’s side, like Thorin wants to touch Fili but isn’t sure how or where. 

“We’re fine,” Fili says, letting go of Kili’s shin and struggling to sit upwards. Thorin smiles, brief and blindingly relieved, and Kili echoes Fili, saying,

“We’re both fine.”

Thorin grabs Fili then, fisting his hand in Fili’s hair and pulling Fili forward. He kisses the top of Fili’s head roughly, then turns and grabs Kili, pulling Kili close, too. Kili’s cheek is pressed tight against Thorin’s stomach and he can feel the scales of Thorin’s armor dig into his skin. He feels Thorin kiss the top of his head, too, and he hears Thorin say in a rough voice, “Thank Mahal.”

It feels much too soon when Thorin lets go of them, standing up. He groans like an old man and Kili can hear his knees cracking. Kili looks up at Thorin, at the deep lines in his face and the bits of gray in his beard, and feels a flood of affection for him. He’s not sure how to say it without sounding trite, so he grabs Thorin’s hand and squeezes hard, then lets go. Thorin looks down at Kili, his face shadowed enough that Kili isn’t sure whether Thorin is smiling or frowning at him. Thorin ruffles Kili’s hair, though, and Kili thinks it might have been a smile.

Thorin leaves them then, moving across the cave to crouch by Oin and Gloin. As soon as Thorin is gone, Fili collapses back onto the sandy ground, his eyes closing and his breath coming out in a whoosh. Kili pats Fili’s stomach gently and Fili groans. He opens his eyes, looking up at Kili, and Kili lifts his eyebrows.

“This,” Fili says in a whisper, quietly enough that Kili has to lean his head down to hear, “is turning out to be a very long adventure.”

Kili smiles because he knows that is what Fili wants, to make Kili smile. Kili pats Fili’s stomach again and when Fili groans even more than before, he asks, “Sore?”

“Of course.” Fili flicks one of his hands, the movement so studiedly lazy and indifferent that Kili has to smile wider. “I was nearly smashed between two mountains, Kili. I might have a scrape or two.”

“A scrape or two,” Kili repeats back, making his voice just as studiedly dry. Fili’s hands, when Kili grabs and inspects them, are scraped and bloody where Fili’s gloves don’t protect them. Kili winces in sympathy, then says, “Well, I guess you got off lightly.”

“Very lightly. We all did.”

Fili’s words are sobering; Kili bows his head and turns all his attention to Fili’s hands. He uses a corner of his tunic, tugged free of his belt, still damp from the storm, and tries to pat away the blood and grit from the cuts and scrapes. It must sting--Kili isn’t tender like Dis and Dori, and he’s certainly not skilled like Oin, but Fili doesn’t make a sound. Perhaps Fili needs this as much as Kili, a chance to lie quiet and still and let the fear sink away. Kili risks using a little water from his waterskin to rinse away the last of the blood and sand, then lays Fili’s hands back on Fili’s stomach.

Fili stays quiet and Kili thinks that perhaps Fili’s fallen asleep. Then Fili says, “He’s affectionate after he’s been frightened.”

When Kili looks at Fili’s face, Fili is looking across the cave. Kili follows the line of Fili’s sight, and sees Thorin sitting beside Dori and Ori, speaking to them quietly. It takes Kili a moment to realize that Thorin is moving through all the dwarves, speaking to them before they bed down for the night.

“He seems kinder,” Fili says, “when he thinks he’s lost you.” Fili turns, looking back up at Kili, and says, with a strange smile, “I think I understand why you’re always doing such stupid things now.”

For a moment, Kili wonders if Fili is right, if this is why Kili is always pushing and pushing and pushing, throwing himself to the mercies of Thorin’s frustration and anger and fear. “I’m going to bed,” he says instead, because he doesn’t know why he can’t be more like Fili.

“Oh,” Fili says, “put my bed out, too, will you?” He lifts his hands, waving them at Kili, and says, “I’m injured, have pity on me.”

Kili rolls his eyes and grumbles about it, but he lays out Fili’s bedroll next to his own. They crawl into their bedrolls and Fili rolls away, turning his back to Kili. Kili stares at Fili’s shoulders, Fili’s still-wet hair and the damp fur on his coat, and asks, “Fili?”

“Yeah?” Fili asks back, his voice muffled. When Kili doesn’t answer straight away, Fili rolls back over, looking at Kili with a very tired looking face.

It’s strange, Kili thinks. Usually Fili is the one whispering at Kili at night, asking Kili questions and telling Kili the strangest things, all while Kili is desperately trying to sleep. Tonight, though, Kili’s mind won’t shut up, the hounds of fear chasing through all of Kili’s thoughts.

Kili grabs his bedroll and tries to scoot it a little closer to Fili’s; it’s awkward, twisting the blankets up under his body, but it gets him a few inches closer, letting him lower his voice until even he can barely hear it.

“I’m frightened,” he says, and he watches the way Fili’s eyes open wide, Fili waking up enough to really look at Kili. Kili licks his lips, then continues, “All the time. That’s what it feels like. It feels like all I am is frightened.”

Fili doesn’t say anything for a while, and it’s hard for Kili to wait for him to speak, to keep from rolling over and pulling his blanket over his own head, to pretend he never said a word. Fili finally says, “I am, too,” slowly and cautiously, like he’s admitting a secret. “I suppose,” Fili adds, still slow, like there is a weight clinging to his words, “that’s what it means, to be on an adventure.”

Kili makes a face at Fili and grumbles, “You’re too young to pretend to be wise.” Fili snorts and agrees peacefully, but he’s still looking closely at Kili, like he’s trying to find out what else Kili is thinking, what other thoughts the hounds of fear are flushing out. 

“The rain will stop in the night,” Fili says after a while; his eyelids are drooping and he’s really only mumbling the words. “It will all be better in the morning.”

“Right,” Kili says softly. “Fili?”

“Mmm?” Fili hums. His eyes are closed but he lifts his eyebrows, like he’s trying to give Kili all of his attention. It looks ridiculous and Kili loves him for it. “What?”

“It didn’t mean anything.” That doesn’t make sense, even to Kili, and he struggles to explain. “That Thorin yelled my name. It didn’t mean anything.”

Fili opens one eye, just a sliver and only for a moment. “I know that,” he says in that sleepy mumble. “He’s always confusing us. Kili, go to sleep already.”

Kili watches Fili fall asleep, fast and easy like there isn’t a battle raging outside the cave. He tries to sleep, but he can’t; he thinks about Fili being torn away from him and Thorin kissing the top of Fili’s head like Fili was a child again. He thinks about Dwalin, too, standing on the same stone leg that had born Fili away. He thinks about home, and that perhaps he shouldn’t have come on this adventure (and maybe that is the secret that Fili had been searching for, that sometimes Kili desperately wants to be home again, away from the fear and the wilderness and an uncle who seems more possessive and more distant every day). He thinks about all these things, and each time he starts to fall asleep, he feels like he is falling, thrown by the stone giants, and he wakes up with a gasp.

The last time he wakes up, the floor is disappearing beneath him, and he thinks that, Mahal, the giants have found them and thrown them all into an abyss.

x

The worst day of Kili’s life turns worse, and worse begets worse until it is the worst three days of Kili’s life. The exhaustion of his body has compounded with the exhaustion of his heart, and when the company reaches the bottom of the enormous, water-locked rock ( _The Carrock,_ Gandalf had called it, like that should have meant something to them), Kili slowly stumbles after Gandalf to a little pebbly cave.

“We shall be safe enough here,” Gandalf says, and Kili feels himself swaying on his feet. “We shall rest, then continue on our way. I will keep watch,” Gandalf says, probably to Thorin; Kili is too tired and dull-minded to check himself. “I’ve had an easier time of it than the rest of you.”

They don’t have any of their baggage, everything lost in the goblin city, and the pebbles will pinch and poke, but Kili’s too tired to really care. He takes the three steps necessary to get himself mostly out of the way, then drops from where he stands. It feels delicious to close his eyes, to just feel himself _sink_ into his bone-deep exhaustion. All his body is limp and heavy, like he is being sucked into the stone, and it is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to sleep without the energy to fear.

When he wakes up, he feels hot and crowded, like someone threw a mountain of quilts over him while he slept. He wants to grumble, throw the quilts off, and go back to sleep, but when he shifts, he feels a pebble sink into a tender spot in his back. He hisses, then turns his head and opens his eyes.

All the dwarves are collapsed together, in a heap of bloody, unwashed bodies and weapons. Fili is tucked up close to Kili’s right, his elbow digging into Kili’s shoulder, but Kili can feel someone else pressed against his back. He shifts, careful as he can, and turns his head until he’s looking at the hair on the top of Ori’s head. 

It is utterly bizarre and feels incredibly alien; Kili’s never slept this close before to anyone other than Fili and Dis. For all the nights leading up to today, there have been feet between Kili and Fili’s bedrolls and everyone else’s. Kili can feel Ori’s body, stouter and heavier than Kili’s own, pressed against Kili’s body, and Kili feels uncomfortable and unsure of himself, as though he’s breaking some rule of propriety. His tiredness fades, overcome by the anxiety that if he falls back asleep, he’ll end up touching Ori. When Ori shifts, pressing his face against Kili’s arm and snoring right against Kili’s ribcage, Kili feels his body go hot and embarrassed. He tries to wiggle free, muttering, “Sorry, I’ve got to piss,” when Fili and Ori and everyone else right next to him groan in complaint. 

By the time he breaks free of the pile of dwarves, he’s stepped on at least seven feet and four hands. Gloin is mumbling, “G’back to sleep, it’s early yet,” and Kili steps over Nori’s outstretched arm, into the fresh, cooler air of the world outside the cave.

Gandalf is sitting on one of the large, curiously carved steps, his staff propped up against the rock wall beside him, his sword resting on his knees. Gandalf is looking at a piece of parchment--most likely Thorin’s map--and he looks up when Kili comes out of the cave, lifting up his eyebrows.

“It was hot,” Kili says, probably needlessly, “and overcrowded.” 

Kili thinks that, if asked, he would describe Gandalf’s smiles as wry; they always seem to be a little lopsided, like Gandalf is laughing at something only he knows. Gandalf smiles that smile now, and says, “It is a small cave for so many dwarves. You still look tired, Kili.”

“A little,” Kili admits, and when Gandalf pats the step he is sitting on, Kili goes over, sitting next to Gandalf. The steps are all carved very high; they’d been jarring to walk down, and Kili had, in the blurry tiredness of the morning, wondering if their little hobbit would fall off the eyot all together. Sitting on a step is equally jarring: even Gandalf’s toes are barely touching the ground, and Kili’s heels don’t even knock the halfway mark. 

Kili kicks his heels a little, and asks, “Why is it called a carrock, then?”

“Because that is what he calls rocks like this,” Gandalf says mysteriously, the way Kili imagines all wizards say things. 

“Who’s he?”

“Someone we will meet very soon, if all goes well.”

Kili thinks about that for a while, wondering if it will be another wizard; he hopes it’s another wizard, though maybe not the one with the rabbits. He’d been a little too odd, even for Kili’s tastes. After a while, Kili says, “I think you’re a magnificent wizard.”

Gandalf looks up from Thorin’s map, turning so he can look down at Kili. His face looks very surprised, his eyebrows nearly disappearing beneath the brim of his hat, his mouth pursed. When Gandalf does smile, it doesn’t look lopsided at all. “And you, Master Kili,” Gandalf says, “are a magnificent dwarf.”

Well, even wizards can’t be right all the time. Kili feels a little giddy with the thought that Gandalf thinks he’s a rather good dwarf, even if Gandalf is a wizard. Kili is grinning stupidly at the thought when Gandalf folds up Thorin’s map and says, “I am surprised. I thought you would have used this chance to take Dwalin to some place entirely inappropriate.”

It feels like ice is running through Kili’s veins, freezing the giddiness and turning his stomach to dread. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kili says, so stiff and awkward that no one would believe him, not even Bombur, who always believes the best of everyone.

“Elrond’s valley has many ears. No, Kili, don’t get up. Your secret is safe enough with me, and even if an elf decided to tell Thorin, which seems unlikely, I doubt that your uncle would listen to anything an elf would tell him.” Gandalf pats Kili’s knee and says, “Though Thorin will find out in time, I’m sure he doesn’t know yet.”

Kili looks at the cave, the pile of snoring dwarves. From here, he can’t make out which dwarf is which, or even which dwarf is really their hobbit. He looks at them all, then out to the slow, wide river. “Was I wrong?” he asks. When Gandalf sighs, Kili turns to look up at him.

Gandalf is looking up at the carrock, and he saying, “Were you wrong? I do not know, neither do I know if you were right. But you will have to live with the choices you have made.” Gandalf looks at Kili, with that wry smile again. “We all have to live with the choices we make.”

Kili can feel something catch in his chest as he says, “But they’re not mine. Not just mine. They’re--it’s for Erebor, everything is. We all are.”

“Are you?” Gandalf asks, peering down at Kili, and Kili says, 

“My body is.”

Gandalf now looks very irritated and Kili can feel himself shrinking back a little. He’s never had Gandalf angry at him before--he has a healthy respect for the wizard, which borders on an understandable and affectionate fear. When Gandalf scowls down at Kili, Kili finds himself hoping that Gandalf doesn’t decide to turn Kili into a toad or a snake, something to save Gandalf from the nuisance that Kili must sometimes be.

“Your body,” Gandalf snaps, quiet enough that the dwarves don’t wake, “belongs to only yourself, Master Kili. Not to Dwalin, not to Thorin, not even to Erebor.”

“You’re not a dwarf,” Kili shoots back, when he’s collected his thoughts enough to say anything at all. “You wouldn’t understand--”

“I understand more than enough. This engagement has been a foolish business from the start, and if Thorin had known better--”

It’s treason and it’s sacrilege; Thorin is their king, and their family is Durin’s. They’ve been blessed by Aule, made into kings and queens, and all of their sacrifices are because they were chosen--because they have to be less, because they are so much more. Kili grapples with the words, trying to order them, so he can tell Gandalf that this is what the Line of Durin is, this is what the Line of Durin does. What he blurts out is, “He’s my _king_.”

“He’s your _uncle_ ,” Gandalf says right back, “and he would do well to remember it. What he’s done by you--”

“But it’s for my benefit,” Kili interrupts. He wants to make Gandalf see--he needs to make Gandalf see. “It’s always been for my benefit, everything. We’re the Line of Durin.”

He gets the feeling that his argument somehow got entirely away from him, and he’s confused. He doesn’t know how to say, _Aule made us this way,_ or how to say, _We’ve been entrusted with the throne,_ or even just to say, _It has to be this way, because this is the way of kings._ Thorin, he thinks, would be able to explain it, would be able to show Gandalf how things are meant to be, but Kili is not Thorin. He’s too young and unsure, awkward and ungainly; his tongue is thick and clumsy in his mouth, and he’s stuttering over his words, unable to say, _This is what I want, this is what I have to want._

Gandalf grabs Kili’s shoulders, his fingers firm and gentle, and says, “Hush. I’m sorry. My frustration doesn’t lie with you.”

Kili’s mouth feels like it’s quivering, like his jaw is shaking apart, and he closes his mouth, covers his mouth with his hands. Gandalf is still looking at Kili so closely, his whole face ducked close to Kili’s. After a moment, Gandalf lets go of Kili’s shoulders and sits up straight again.

“It will be some time before anyone else wakes up,” Gandalf says, nodding at the cave. “You should get some more sleep.”

Kili looks at the crowded cave, but before he can even begin to decide whether or not he wants to even try to find a spot in there to sleep, Gandalf says, “You might want to sleep on the steps. Perhaps the one right above mine? It won’t be as crowded as the cave.”

The steps were hard enough to climb down--climbing up them is another struggle all together, and Kili feels a little stupid, clambering up the step as Gandalf watches him. The step is wide, though, and far smoother than the pebbled floor of the cave. It is warm, too, already baked from the early morning sun, and when Kili lies out on the step, the heat of the stone seeps soothingly into his body, all the way into his bones. 

He lies on his stomach, pillowing his head on his arms, and he tugs his hood over his face, hiding his eyes from the sun. It’s far better to sleep out here than in the cave; no one’s touching him, and there’s no one he may touch in his sleep. The sun is dripping warmth through Kili’s coat, into the space between Kili’s shoulderblades, and the air smells fresh and clean. When he’s half asleep, he hears Gandalf begin to hum, and he can smell the tobacco smoke as Gandalf begins to smoke.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s Gandalf who shakes Kili awake next; Gandalf is bent close to Kili’s face, close enough that when Kili opens his eyes, all he can see is the crooked bridge of a nose and a pair of eyes staring back at him. He jerks back, startled, and bangs his elbow on the wide stone steps. Gandalf draws back, tugging on his beard and saying, “I thought I should wake you, before Fili and Ori took matters into their own hands.”

When Kili gathers enough presence of mind to actually look around him, he sees that Fili and Ori are standing together near the cave, whispering to one another; Nori is sitting on a rock just beyond them, and Balin is at the far end of the carrock’s little eyot, looking at the river. The rest of the dwarves, Kili assumes, are still asleep in the cave.

“What?” Kili asks, his voice rough. He feels like there’s grit in his eyes, from not enough sleep, and he rubs at them as he rolls on his back. 

“Oh,” Gandalf says, sounding cheerful, “they were deciding how best to throw you into the river.” 

Of course. Kili groans but he sits up before Fili and Ori can decide to proceed with any plans of throwing him anywhere. Gandalf goes back down the steps, wandering over towards the dwarves already awake. Kili stretches until he feels his spine crack, then follows after him, loping along to catch up with Gandalf’s much longer strides. When he reaches the group, he shuffles close to Fili, close enough that he can lean against Fili, digging his chin into Fili’s shoulder. Fili grunts but holds still, and Kili sighs, still feeling sleepy and loose-limbed.

Balin has come to join the little group, too, and he asks Gandalf, “When will we be leaving?”

“In a while, perhaps after midday. It’s not far from here,” Gandalf says, “but perhaps you should bathe. I’d prefer if we did not look like beggars at the door.”

“And our clothes?” Kili asks hopefully, straightening up. His clothes are stiff with sweat and blood, and just thinking about putting them on again, in this state, makes him grimace.

Gandalf looks up at the sky and says, “It will be a hot day. Your clothes should dry quickly enough.”

That’s enough for Kili; he tugs off his coat and vest, wrapping them around his sword and the clasp from his hair, the odds and ends in his pockets that hadn’t been found by the goblins. He tugs off his boots, too, then, still clad in his socks and trousers and tunic, runs and throws himself into the river with a wild whoop.

The water is cold, a shock to his system, waking him up entirely. He spits and sputters when he surfaces from the water, kicking his feet and throwing his arms out. The current catches at his sleeves and fingers, dragging him slowly downstream, and he lets his head fall back, his hair tugged by the water. 

Fili crashes into the water only feet from him, splashing him with water, and Kili grabs his brother’s arm, dragging Fili along with him in the current. Fili tries to dunk him and Kili grabs Fili’s stomach, drags Fili down into the water with them. When they’re properly soaked, they drag themselves out of the river, back onto the bank around the carrock, and they peel their wet clothes off piece by piece. Fili pounds his clothes with a rock, trying to get the stains out or some such thing, but Kili settles for rubbing his clothes together in the water, wringing them dry, then dunking them in the water again. When the orc blood seems to all be gone, Kili wrings out his clothes and goes to lay them out to dry.

Ori is crouched on a step of the carrock, laying out his own clothes, and Kili climbs past him to lay out his clothes on the next step up. He’s putting his socks down, side-by-side, when he hears Ori gives a sharp little, “Oh--”

“What is it?” Kili asks, leaning over his step to look down at Ori curiously. Ori’s looking up at Kili, his hair wet and loose, and he looks very young; Kili wonders if, when Dwalin looks at him, he seems as young as Ori does.

“Your back,” Ori says. “There’s a bruise, across the whole of it.”

“Is there?” Kili cranes his neck, trying to peer at his back, but it’s impossible. It feels sore, though, and he reaches around, poking at his skin gingerly; tender, yes, but nothing he won’t survive. “I think I fell on someone’s knee,” he says. “Then I was on the bottom, when we....” He claps his hands together, blowing out his breath like an explosion. “The goblin king.”

Ori gives Kili a very sympathetic look and Kili is a little struck by just how much Ori is like both of his brothers; just as nice as Dori can be, and just as foolhardly as Nori. Kili smiles at Ori, then looks at Ori a little closer. Ori is just as naked as Kili, and Kili can see scrapes and bruises under the hair on Ori’s chest and stomach, mottling across his arms and legs.

“You look worse than I do,” Kili says. “You should ask Oin for something before Dori catches sight of you.”

When he’s laid out all of his clothes, pinning them with rocks to keep them from blowing away with the summer breeze, he goes back to the river. He crouches in the shallows at the edge of the river, the water pulling around his calves and his thighs, and he scrubs himself clean with handfuls of rough sand. His skin turns red and raw, sore and tender to the touch, but the redness is so much better than the blackness of the orc blood and ashes that had been caked on him before.

By the time he’s feeling properly clean, Fili is splashing through the river towards him, saying, “Kili, come on! We’re going to catch some fish.”

They wade through the shallows, heading upriver, until Kili can just barely see the point of Gandalf’s gray hat. He sits on a rotting tree trunk that’s half sunk into the mud in the shallows of the river, and watches Fili try to catch fish. Fili looks ridiculous, standing in the middle of the river, lunging after fish like some small, nearly naked bear. Kili tells him so, and Fili says,

“Well you catch one, then, if you’re so much better at it.”

Kili is pretty sure there will never be a time he’s not easily goaded into something or other by Fili. Before he’s even entirely aware he’s doing so, he’s slid from the tree trunk and is wading through to the depths of the river. “Right,” Kili says grandly, feeling rather sure of himself, “I’ll catch you a fish.”

Within minutes he’s spluttering and cranky, feeling more than half-drowned, and Fili is laughing like he’ll never stop. Kili halfheartedly swipes his arm over the face of the river, splashing Fili, and says, “Shut up, already. I’m done, I give up. Can we go now? Your laughter’s scared away all the fish.”

“Are you sure that wasn’t you?” Fili manages to spit out, before he’s laughing too hard to speak again. Kili flicks a little more water at him, then says, 

“Well, go on then, Master Bear. I’m going back, but by all means, catch us all some fish.”

“Come on, Kili, don’t be like that--”

Kili throws himself into the current of the river, pushing himself off with his feet, and paddling a little madly with his arms and legs. The current is lazy and slow, but he can move fast enough when he tries. When he’s a little ways away and can no longer hear Fili splashing after him, he rolls over onto his back, letting the current carry him the rest of the way down to the carrock.

The current spins him in the river, tugging him this way and that, and after a while he can hear shouting and whooping and splashing. More dwarves must be awake, then, and bathing in the river, for a loose definition of bathing. He lifts his head, trying to see who all is awake, and promptly chokes on his own tongue when he sees Dwalin.

Dwalin is standing in the river, water up to his thighs, and he’s shouting to someone on the bank. Kili has never seen Dwalin without his trousers before, and it feels awkward and embarrassing to look at him, entirely unlike looking at Fili or Ori or anyone else. Dwalin is all thick bunches of muscles, ropey scars across his chest and the backs of his thighs, and he has dark hair on his legs and stomach and chest. He’s beautiful, thick and dark and a proper dwarf, and Kili feels sick with longing. Then he feels sick with dread, because Kili is so skinny, nearly as slender and pale and hairless as an elf, and he can’t slowly float down the river in front of everyone, naked and ugly and wet.

He tries to lunge to his feet, to stop the current from carrying him past the other dwarves. He feels frantically for the bottom of the river and gasps as his foot lands on a stone, then slips on the algae, dunking him into the river.

When he rises, coughing, from the river, he finds himself face-to-knees with Thorin. Thorin is sitting on a huge rock that cuts into the river; he’s barefoot, only in his trousers and tunic, and he’s unbraiding his hair. He looks at Kili curiously, like he has no idea where Kili appeared from, and he still looks a little sleepy and dazed. It feels so much like mornings back home in the Blue Mountains, when Thorin would slump half-asleep against the table during breakfast, that Kili stumbles on the rocks on the river bottom and crashes back under the water.

When he stands up again, coughing and spluttering and choking, Thorin is frowning at Kili, like he’s trying to figure out where he got such a clumsy nephew from.

“Good morning,” Kili says, looking up at Thorin. Thorin looks down at Kili, and says back, 

“Good morning.” Thorin’s frown deepens as he looks around, and then Thorin asks, “Where is your brother?”

“Oh,” Kili says, and he has to roll his eyes. “Fili’s upriver. He’s trying to catch fish, like a bear.”

Thorin sighs and rolls his eyes, too, and he even smiles at Kili for a moment. “I’ll be surprised if he catches anything,” Thorin says, and then he asks Kili, “Would you be able to find any game?”

Kili lets himself sink deeper into the river, until the water is pulling at his hair and his shoulders. “Yes,” Kili says, “but my bow’s gone--I could set traps, but it would take time to catch anything.”

Thorin has finished undoing his braids; he drags his hands through his hair, then shakes his head like a dog. His hair flies madly, wild and tangled, and he looks a bit like a wildman of the mountains. “We’ll hope your brother has some luck, then,” Thorin says, then turns away to speak with Balin.

Kili wades back into the depths of the river, where his toes can barely touch the rocky bottom. The sun is at its apex now, glimmering over the river, and Kili tilts his head back so he can feel the sun on his face. It is a bright, hot, beautiful day, a summer day worth living. He lingers there, in the middle of the river, feeling the current tug at him and the sunlight try to drown him; it is delicious, all cold shivers running down his body and hot sunlight burning his face. 

When his face feels tight and dry, burnt by the sun, he dunks his face in the water, then wades his way back to the carrock. Fili is nowhere to be seen--probably still fishing--and Thorin and Balin are in close conference with Gandalf. Nori and Ori are playing a dunking game in the river and the rest of the dwarves are scattered along the carrock’s rocky bank, shouting encouragement to them. When Kili squints, he can see Bilbo amongst the dwarves, too, sitting next to Bofur and laughing at something Bombur is saying. 

He climbs up to the step on the carrock where his clothes are drying, and after turning his trousers and tunic over, he stretches out on the stone, laying his arm over his eyes. The dwarves are loud, shouting and laughing and calling to one another, and Kili listens to them until their voices blur and fade. He doesn’t realize he’s dozing until someone touches his arm, murmuring, “Kili, wake up.”

Kili groans and pulls his arm away from his eyes, squinting up at the dwarf. It’s Dori; he pats Kili’s arm and says, “Get dressed, lad. We’re leaving soon.”

Kili rolls over, letting his arms curl up. The steps are so smooth, sanded out by time, perhaps, and Kili rubs his thumb over the stone. “Thorin?” he asks, a little blearily.

“He’s talking with Gandalf. Gloin’s gone to fetch Fili and we’ll be leaving as soon as they’re back.”

Kili drags on his clothes, then follows Dori down off of the carrock. The rest of Kili’s things, coat and boots and sword, are still bundled together near the cave. Kili’s hair is a mess, tangled and only half-dried, and he half-heartedly tries to comb his fingers through it before pulling half of it back out of his face. He holds the parted hair with one hand and digs through the folds of his coat with his other hand, looking for his clasp.

“Kili.”

It’s Dwalin, nearly looming over Kili, and Kili darts a look up at him before turning back to his coat. Kili’s just felt the smooth edge of his clasp, tucked away into a coat pocket, when Dwalin touches Kili’s head, his fingers curling around Kili’s. Dwalin says, “Your hair’s a mess,” and Kili lets go of his hair, pulling his hand away from Dwalin’s.

Dwalin settles heavily behind Kili, then he’s touching the sides of Kili’s head, his fingers under the curve of Kili’s jaw. He’s tugging gently, tilting Kili’s head back, and Kili swallows, lifting his chin until his whole throat is bared. He can feel Dwalin tugging at Kili’s hair, unknotting tangles at the ends of Kili’s hair, then pulling and smoothing out sections. Kili’s palms are sweating and he feels like he’s trembling in his throat; he wipes his palms on his trousers as unobtrusively as he can, hoping that the back of his neck isn’t as red and hot as it feels like it might be.

“You did well in the mountains,” Dwalin says as he’s untangling Kili’s hair. “I was proud of you.”

Kili’s mouth goes dry at that, and he has to swallow before he can say, very hoarsely, “Thank you.”

Kili half-expects Dwalin to laugh at him and his awkwardness, but Dwalin is silent, and remains so. Kili’s hands keep sweating, but he can’t keep wiping them off on his trousers without looking like a fool, so he curls his hands into fists and then sits on them. He can feel Dwalin’s breath on his neck and the pinch on his scalp when Dwalin tugs too hard on a tangle. 

“A braid?” Dwalin asks. 

Kili can feel Dwalin’s fingertips on his scalp, sending prickles across Kili’s skin, and Kili barely manages to say, “Anything you want.”

Dwalin separates Kili’s hair with far more care than Kili ever does, picking up and dropping bits of hair, smoothing out the sections. When he finally begins to braid the top half of Kili’s hair, he does so quickly and tightly. Kili thinks it is a little unfair, how Dwalin seems so in control while Kili can’t control the sweating and shaking of his hands.

“I haven’t braided another’s hair,” Dwalin says, his voice sounding absent, as though he’s not aware he’s talking, “for a long time. Before you were born, I think.” 

Dwalin goes quiet, like he’s expecting Kili to ask a question, but Kili shuts his mouth and keeps it closed. _Before you were born_ is shorthand for Thorin and Dis, always meaning the stretch of time between the fall of Erebor and the colony at Ered Luin. _Before you were born_ means the war in Khazad-dum and the beheading of Thror and the death of Frerin. Kili is a selfish, jealous dwarf, and he doesn’t want to know what Dwalin’s life was before Kili was born. He doesn’t want to know who Dwalin lost in war, or with whom Dwalin traveled before Ered Luin was colonized. Kili only wants to hear about the parts of Dwalin’s life where he’s present, small and paltry as though parts may be.

Dwalin must take Kili’s silence as the disinterest as it is, because he says nothing more. When he’s finished with braid he holds his hand, open and palm up, over Kili’s shoulder, and prods, “Bead.”

Kili digs into the pocket of his coat, then sets the clasp in the center of Dwalin’s palm. Dwalin’s hand is rough and dry and wide, and he closes his hand over Kili’s fingers, holding them with the clasp for a moment. Then Dwalin pulls his hand away, taking the clasp and affixing it to the tail of Kili’s braid. 

It feels strange, the clasp hanging so low in his hair, and Kili is shaking his head slowly, trying to accustom himself to the change of weight when he notices a shadow has fallen over them. He glances up, and Thorin looks down at them, his face blank.

“A braid?” Thorin asks after long seconds, when Kili has started to fidget. Kili can still feel Dwalin sitting behind him, and now that Thorin is standing over them, Kili thinks Dwalin is sitting far too close.

“Dwalin,” Kili says, half-pointing behind him, like that will be explanation enough. It must be, because Thorin leans forward, looking more closely at Kili.

“It makes you look respectable,” Thorin says in a thoughtful-sounding voice. He takes a step back and adds, a little sharper, “We leave in five minutes. Make sure you’re ready.”

Kili wipes his sweating hands on his trousers again, then drags on his boots, doing up the buckles. When Kili stands, Dwalin stands with him, and when Kili puts on his vest, Dwalin bends down to pick up Kili’s sword and sling. Nerves are rising up in Kili’s throat, and he takes a half-step away as he puts on his belt, pulling it tight, tighter than it’d been in the Blue Mountains. When Kili’s shrugged on his coat, Dwalin reaches out, tugging Kili back that half-step. He’s looking closely at Kili, like Kili is a puzzle, and when Kili looks back at him, Dwalin lifts his eyebrows. 

“Duck your head,” Dwalin says, and Kili does so, tucking his chin against his collarbone. Kili feels the weight of the sling as Dwalin drops it over Kili’s head, tugging it to rest along the width of Kili’s shoulder. “Arm,” Dwalin commands, and Kili slips his arm through the sling, then tries to adjust the belt; Dwalin knocks Kili’s hands away and adjusts the sling out himself, smoothing it out across Kili’s chest.

“Good enough,” Dwalin says when he’s taken a few steps back. His voice sounds pleased, though, and he claps his hand on Kili’s shoulder before he walks away. Kili doesn’t watch him go--he looks at Thorin instead. Thorin is watching Kili, and he looks distinctly unimpressed; he nods his head at the ground behind Kili, then says,

“Don’t forget your bracers.”

Kili scrambles to pick up his gloves and bracers, then scrambles even more to catch up with the company, which is already fording the river, Bilbo carried on Dori’s back. They all push through the river together, then begin to walk mostly east and a little south. They walk through trees, and grasses, and then even greater trees, huge wide oaks and elms and willows that bend to the ground. It’s a hot, beautiful day, the sun beating down on them, a wind caught up in the tops of the trees. The world feels brighter and lighter after the days spent in the mountains.

Gandalf tells them about the house they are going to, about the skin-changer who changes into a bear, and Kili thinks that might be even better than a wizard. He makes bets with Fili on how big the bear-man must be, and whether they’ll see him as a bear or as a man, and what sort of bear he might be. Gandalf scolds them, telling them to watch their tongues, but Kili’s too excited to feel any stings of shame. This house, he thinks, will be far better than the house of elves.

By the late afternoon, they’ve passed through fields of deep clover and green trees, and have come to a long, high hedgerow. Gandalf stops them all, saying, “Well, we have arrived, and all in one piece.”

He’ll take Bilbo, Gandalf tells them, and then the dwarves should follow him in pairs, one pair every five minutes. “Bombur is fat enough for two,” Gandalf says, and Kili has to hide his face in Fili’s shoulder so Bombur won’t see him laughing, “so he should come last.”

As soon as Gandalf and Bilbo have disappeared around the hedge, Thorin turns to them and says, “We’ll pair by kin, then. Dori, you’ll come with me. Bofur and Bifur, you will go together, and Bombur will come behind you.”

Everyone shuffles into an approximate formation, and then there is little to do but sit in the tall grass and wait. Bombur lies in the grass, probably half-asleep already, and Dori is whispering urgently to Nori and Ori, probably telling them to remain on their best manners, or some such thing. Thorin doesn’t say anything, but Kili imagines that he’s too tired and sore to bother worrying more than he must. Kili himself plucks blades of grass, thick and heavy ones, and weaves them into a little basket; Fili is trying, too, though his basket is already lopsided and a little ugly.

Gandalf’s whistle finally comes and Dori straightens up, fixing his coat and his sleeves. If Kili looks at them objectively, he thinks that really, Dori looks far more respectable than Thorin, especially with Thorin’s battered face. It’s almost as though Thorin hears Kili’s thoughts, because he turns and looks right at Kili and Fili.

“Five minutes between each pair,” he says sternly, staring at Kili, then turning to look at Nori. Then, while Kili is still dismayed at being cautioned with _Nori_ , Thorin turns and heads down the long hedge, Dori at his side.

It seems as though time stops entirely; Kili can’t help fidgeting, nervous and curious and feeling so impatient. He tries to weave a few more blades of grass into his basket, then gives up and starts tearing it to pieces with his fingers.

By the time Nori and Ori leave, heading down the hedge, Kili’s fingers are stained green and there are bits of grass caught beneath his nails. He’s plucked another piece of grass and is tearing it to thin threads when Dwalin grabs his hands, holding them tight.

“Your hands,” Dwalin says, and he nods at Kili’s hands. “You don’t want to go in looking like a beggar.” When Kili looks at Dwalin’s face, Dwalin is smiling at him, his whole beard bristling up with the smile. (When Kili looks past Dwalin’s face, he can see Balin frowning at them and Fili looking hesitant and unsure.)

“It’s only grass,” Kili tries to correct him. “Hardly beggarly.” 

“And your hair?” 

Dwalin lets go of Kili’s hands when Kili pulls them away. Kili reaches up to touch his hair: the braid is falling apart, as he should have expected. He tugs out the clasp, then drags his fingers through the braid, pulling loose the knots and twists. 

Kili has just put the clasp back in when Balin clears his throat and says, “You go on in, laddies. Dwalin and I can wait a little longer.”

Kili leaps to his feet, barely bothering to brush the torn up grass from his clothes. He grabs Fili’s arm, yanking Fili up when Fili is much too slow, then he drags his brother through the trees and to the hedge. He doesn’t bother looking back to Dwalin, or to any of the other dwarves--they seem of little interest, compared to the chance to see a bear-man.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Some domestic violence. Also, some drunken fondling, so there are some consent issues. Again.

Beorn’s hall is a place of excess. The tables, though low to the ground, are all wide and long, and there are many of them, set up side by side to make a table that fills nearly half of the great hall. The sheep and dogs (and these Kili watches in amazement, because it is certainly one of the greatest tricks he’s ever seen) bring food, and more food, and even more food, until Kili thinks he can hear the tables groaning under the weight.

It is nearly all sweet food; bread and cream and butter and honey. There’s no meat, but at least it’s proper, hardy food, not like what they had to eat in the house of the elves. Kili eats until he’s made himself sick, stuffing himself on bread slathered in butter and honey, and heaping spoonfuls of plain clotted cream. He thinks that, if they stay here long enough, he might be able to put back on some of the weight he’s lost on the road.

And then there’s the mead. It’s thick and sweet and ridiculously potent, and he cannot stop drinking it. Though, to be fair, he thinks no one is able to stop drinking it. Their hobbit is already red-faced and giggling, and Kili knows that he’s not far behind. The mead has lightened everyone’s spirits, though, even more than their peaceful day has, and so Kili cheers with Nori and Gloin when Beorn describes, in gruesome detail, the way he had once torn a goblin in half.

Beorn’s stories are in as much excess as his food and drink; he tells stories about slaughtering wargs and goblins and other, far stranger monsters, beasts Kili can’t even imagine. Beorn tells other stories, too, about the life of Lonely Mountains, but those stories aren’t half so interesting as the bloody ones. Kili drinks, and drinks, and drinks, and makes sure to cheer appropriately loud each time Beorn kills another foul beast in his stories.

Beorn leaves when the evening is far gone, and the dwarves tell stories about gems and mining and the crafting of weapons; it’s marginally more interesting than the stories about the Lonely Mountains, and far more boring than the stories of battles. When Bofur starts humming, right in the middle of one of Oin’s long anecdotes about fishing, Fili joins in the humming, and Kili does, too. The dwarves clap, and they stomp, and they dance, leaping and shouting and singing. Kili grabs Fili’s wrists, and Fili clasps his hands on Kili’s wrists, and they spin like mad things, around and around. The walls of Beorn’s hall spin in a blur around Kili, the dark brown of the wood and the bright heat of the crackling fire. They spin and spin and Kili laughs and screams and hangs onto his brother with all his might.

Even dwarves grow weary, though, and eventually Kili lets go of Fili’s wrists, letting himself collapse back onto the floor. He is drunk, dizzy and feeling like a piece of lint tossed into the air. The stone under his head is cool and steady, and he spreads out his arms and legs, like he is embracing the entirety of the earth. 

There are still voices singing, songs about the deep earth and the fractured beauty of gems; Gandalf is dancing now, his face wreathed in smoke, and he is casting long shadows across Beorn’s hall. Kili watches the shadows spin and fall, and listens to the voices of his cousins as they sing.

The fire is much diminished before any of the dwarves go to bed. Bilbo is already asleep, snoring near the wall, and the first to join him are Oin and Balin, who are making noises about being too old to drink so late. The hall quiets after that, as dwarf after dwarf goes to their sleep. Even Fili leaves him, with an absent-minded pat to Kili’s face. Kili lingers where he is, watching as the world around him seems to fall asleep, and wonders what it would feel like, to be the last dwarf on the earth.

The thought is morose and bizarre, even for him, and he is beginning to think of finding his own bed when Dwalin leans over him, Dwalin’s face only half-lit by the low fire.

“Shouldn’t sleep on the floor, laddie,” Dwalin says. He’s smiling--Kili can see in, in the half-light of the hall.

Kili sighs and rolls his shoulders; it feels like his shoulderblades could sink into the floor, through stone and through earth. “You could lie here,” Kili offers. For all that the floor is cold, he is comfortable, his eyes growing heavy. “Beside me.”

Dwalin’s smile goes away, and he says, “On the floor, in the middle of a hall? I’d do that to no one, most of all to you.”

Kili turns the words over in his head, wonders curiously if Dwalin’s words come from protectiveness or possession or only propriety. Then he wonders how much propriety Dwalin could truly have--seventy-four years is a long time to wait, and Dwalin was old even before Kili was born.

“Have you?” he asks, his curiosity like a poison. “Lain with someone?”

“Pretty words,” Dwalin says back in a grumble. “You mean a fuck?” Dwalin leans forward, like he can’t really see Kili’s face properly; it’s dark in the hall, so maybe he can’t. “You’re drunk, Kili.”

Kili considers this carefully: he shakes his head, to see if the hall spins around him, and he rubs his fingertips together; he considers his own bravery, the slow heat in his blood that’s turning cold. 

“Not anymore,” Kili decides, feeling tired and cold and perhaps a little sad. There’s no exuberance left in him, only a mild curiosity and a dull acceptance. Dwalin scowls down at Kili, the scowl even more profound in the light and shadows, and Kili frowns back up at him.

“Thorin never said you’re a morose drunk,” Dwalin says, and Kili scoffs.

“I don’t drink with Thorin,” he says, because there would be no point in that; Thorin doesn’t laugh or dance or even smile when he drinks. When Thorin drinks, he drinks the same way as Dis, with a painful intensity and heavy silence. 

“Who do you drink with, then?” Dwalin asks. For all his supposed dismay at Kili lying on the floor, he doesn’t seem intent on pulling Kili up; he sinks down instead, sitting next to Kili, and he lays a hand lightly on Kili’s stomach.

“Fili,” Kili says. He rolls his head to the side so he can see Dwalin, and he touches Dwalin’s hand, running his fingertips over each of Dwalin’s knuckles. Dwalin’s body doesn’t move, and his breath doesn’t change; Kili is disappointed by that.

“No taverns for you?” Dwalin asks, and Kili moves his hand away from Dwalin’s.

“It would be unseemly,” Kili says, mimicking Thorin’s voice just a little, “for the heirs of Erebor to be drunk in public.” He blinks in the darkened hall, then adds, “He thinks we’ll do something foolish.”

“Would you?”

“Possibly,” Kili allows. He sighs and presses his palms against the floor and closes his eyes. He can hear dwarves snoring and the faint cracks of logs splintering in the fireplace. He’s cold and tired, and he doesn’t feel very drunk anymore; the world seems lonely and sad. (Maybe Dwalin is right, and he’s drunk; maybe Thorin is right, and he’s a foolish boy.)

He can feel himself begin to fall asleep, in huge, swooping arches of exhaustion. He should get up and move, try to find a bed to fall into, but he’s tired and Dwalin’s hand feels like a weight on his stomach, pinning him to the floor. He thinks about telling Dwalin to let him up, but he only manages to sigh instead.

He’s lying there, just passing the threshold of sleep, when he feels Dwalin kiss him. The kiss is neither chaste nor gentle--it’s deep, Dwalin’s mouth pressing persistently at Kili’s. Kili gasps in a breath, surprised, and then Dwalin’s tongue licks its way into Kili’s open mouth. Dwalin’s tongue feels foreign in Kili’s mouth, and utterly obscene; Dwalin’s hand is pressing heavier on Kili’s stomach, like Dwalin wants to keep Kili beneath him.

Kili doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do--he moves his hands on the floor, the rough stone scraping at his palms, and Mahal, his skin all feels sensitive now, like his body’s become nothing but bruised nerves. He thinks of kissing Dwalin back, but he’s not sure how--he’s not sure if he can. When he dares to open his eyes, he sees that Dwalin’s eyes are closed, and that gives him a little courage, knowing that Dwalin can’t see him. He slides his palms further out on the floor, like he’s anchoring himself, then he lifts his hands and curls his arms over the back of Dwalin’s head. 

He drags his middle and ring fingers across Dwalin’s scalp, and he doesn’t think he imagines Dwalin’s shiver; when his fingertips catch the edge of Dwalin’s mangled ear, he is certain of Dwalin’s shudder. Kili can feel a vibration on his lips, against his tongue, and it isn’t until his palm is pressed against the side of Dwalin’s throat, and he can feel the same vibration there, too, that he realizes that Dwalin is moaning.

And, Mahal, they are lying in the middle of a hall and the vast majority of Kili’s kin are sleeping only yards away. His uncertain arousal fades, turning to ice in his belly and thighs. He’s not kissing Dwalin, but he wasn’t kissing Dwalin before, either--Dwalin either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. Kili turns his head, breaking Dwalin’s kiss, and Dwalin pulls back.

When Dwalin opens his eyes, Kili can only seem to see Dwalin’s pupils. Kili looks at Dwalin’s blown pupils, then at the mottled red on Dwalin’s face, and says stupidly, “You’re drunk.”

Dwalin ducks his head against Kili’s chest and _chuckles_ , damn him, and Kili half-heartedly tries to push Dwalin off him. Dwalin is stroking Kili’s belly now, like that is supposed to ease Kili’s frustrations, and Kili shoves harder, until Dwalin finally sits up. 

Kili leaves his hands pressing on Dwalin’s chest, against the thick muscles, and asks, “Is this foolish?”

Dwalin’s hand stills on Kili’s belly, then begins moving again, slower; Dwalin’s other hand comes up, cupping around one of Kili’s hands. Dwalin isn’t chuckling any longer, but he doesn’t look serious, either. After a moment, Dwalin gives Kili an awkward looking smile, and says, “You’ll only be foolish if you sleep here on the floor.”

That is that, then. Kili closes his eyes and sighs, feeling drained all over again. The floor is cold and hard, Dwalin is avoiding Kili’s questions, and Kili can feel sobriety sneaking up on him. He pats Dwalin’s chest, meaning some kindness by it, but too tired to bother with anything much. Then he pushes Dwalin further back, so that there is space between Kili’s outstretched arms and Dwalin’s body.

“Help me up, then,” Kili says, and he keeps his eyes closed and his arms outstretched, waiting for Dwalin’s help.

It takes a moment, but Kili does feel Dwalin get up, Dwalin’s hand leaving Kili’s belly. Then Dwalin is gripping Kili’s wrists, and Kili grips Dwalin’s wrists back, holding tightly as Dwalin heaves Kili to his feet. Blood rushes from Kili’s head as the last bit of drunkenness rushes to it and Kili staggers, groaning.

“Steady,” Dwalin says, his hands still wrapped around Kili’s wrists. Dwalin steps forward, close enough that Kili can rest his weight against Dwalin’s body, and Kili does so gratefully, tucking his face against Dwalin’s shoulder. 

“Still drunk?” Dwalin asks softly, near Kili’s ear, and Kili sighs, mutters,

“More so than I thought.”

Dwalin doesn’t laugh, and Kili is more grateful for that than he expected. Now that Kili is on his feet, all he wants to do is find a bed and collapse into it, and he says as much, mumbling it against the roughness of Dwalin’s shirt.

“You’ll need to move your legs, then,” Dwalin informs Kili, and Kili sighs, lets Dwalin lead him to Fili’s bed.

Dwalin holds Kili’s wrists until Kili has sunk down to sit on the straw mattress. When Dwalin lets go of Kili’s wrists, Kili stretches out on the mattress, shifting and squirming until he’s managed to crawl beneath the heavy blankets. 

Fili’s body is warm, makes the hall seem even colder by comparison, and so Kili slides across the mattress until he is pressed up against Fili’s broad back. When Kili presses his forehead against the space between Fili’s shoulders, he can feel the vibrations of Fili’s snoring. It is warm here, and safe, and Kili drags the blankets up past his chin before he falls asleep.

x

Faint morning light is streaking in through the open door when Kili wakes up. He still feels tired and blurry, and he rolls over to try to go back to sleep. His bladder is full and heavy, though, and after a few minutes he groans and gets up, staggering out of the hall to find a place to relieve himself. By the time he comes back to the hall, Balin is sitting on the wide porch, smoking his pipe and looking out over Beorn’s yard.

“Good morning,” Balin says, as soon as he spots Kili. Kili waves a little, and tries to smile at Balin, though the sunlight is making him go squint-eyed. Balin must see Kili’s trouble, because he smiles at Kili and says, “You’re having an early morning after such a late night.”

“Yes,” Kili croaks, and his voice startles even him; it sounds truly dreadful, rasping and breaking, and he flushes at the sound of it. Balin chuckles and Kili realizes that Balin and Dwalin have very similar sounding laughs; then he realizes he is thinking of Dwalin chuckling against his chest, and his flush grows far hotter.

“Join me,” Balin suggests, even while he’s chuckling, and Kili is too flustered, thinking of Dwalin kissing him in the middle of the hall, to say no. He sits down next to Balin, turned at an angle away from the rising sun, and tries to give Balin a better smile.

Balin doesn’t give Kili time to get fully settled; Kili is still shifting, trying to find a proper angle to avoid the morning sun, when Balin says, without warning, “I believe I know my brother better than anyone else.”

“What,” Kili asks, startled and beginning to feel ill-humored, “is it your turn to scold me?”

Balin is still smiling at Kili, but now his smile looks forced. Kili remembers the way Balin had frowned at him yesterday, on the other side of Beorn’s hedges, and wishes he had kept his mouth shut.

“Not to scold you,” Balin says, “but to caution you. Dwalin is not a dwarf given to much forethought.”

Kili begins to open his mouth but thinks better of it; he is certain that Balin would have no second thoughts about taking any concerns to Thorin. Kili’s silence must be encouraging to Balin, because Balin’s smile grows a little more mild.

“Dwalin doesn’t always think of what the results of his actions may be.” Balin’s smile quirks a little, and he adds, “He especially doesn’t wonder if the effects will be--negative.”

“You think he’d hurt me?” Kili wishes he felt incredulous; as it is, he only feels a sickening sense of uncertainty.

“No,” Balin says quickly, and then slower, “Not that he’d mean to. But he doesn’t always think of how his actions will affect others.”

Kili isn’t sure what to say to that; he thinks of how Dwalin had touched him in Rivendell, but that, he is certain, is Kili’s own fault. Dwalin has only ever been kind to Kili, kinder than Kili is sure he deserves; but for all his kindness, Dwalin seems so much greater than Kili. He is older and wiser and far more powerful; he’s seen kingdoms rise and fall, and he has survived wars, and he has seen so much more of the world. Kili, in turn, has little--his body and his position, and one is owed to his king and the other was a gift from his king; Kili, in turn, has very little, and none of it is his own.

It is unfair, he thinks, that he is meant to hold his place in the world, when all the world seems to be so much greater than he is.

“He cares for you,” Balin goes on, “in his own way. He feels a responsibility to you.”

“And I shouldn’t take advantage?”

Balin’s face twists and he lowers his pipe, turning his face from Kili to look at his pipe. “No,” Balin says as he fiddles with his pipe, “I am saying that you should be careful that he does not take advantage of _you_.” Balin clears his throat, then says, “That’s enough of that talk. I believe there should be a breakfast prepared, somewhere around here.”

It is a firm end to their conversation, for which Kili is grateful. He climbs to his feet and then, when Balin clears his throat, helps Balin to his own feet. Balin leads the way down the porch and Kili follows him, not sure if Balin also meant to dismiss him.

The porch must ring the entirety of the hall, because when they reach the end of the hall, the porch turns a corner and continues on. Around this corner are dozens of short, wide tables, and there are dogs lying out baskets of breads and platters of cheese and jugs of cream. What queasiness that had been lingering in Kili’s stomach fades away with the smell of food.

Kili eats as much as he ate the night before, until he feels sick from too much food; he eats sweet breads and drinks heavy cream like it is milk, and Balin hands Kili rolls filled with melted cheese.

“You’re too skinny, lad,” Balin says kindly, and Kili agrees. He eats, and he eats, and when he finally pulls himself away from the tables, his belly is aching from the heavy, rich foods. 

He lies out on the grass, where the morning sun is shining, and dozes there, barely waking when each dwarf comes out onto the porch, calling and shouting. When he has slept off the stupor of his breakfast, he goes back to the porch to pick through what is left of the breakfast. 

Bilbo is there, eating ravenously, and Kili makes a point to leave the best pieces for Bilbo. Dwalin is leaning against one of the last tables, talking to Balin, and when Balin leaves, Kili sidles his way down the porch as unobtrusively as he can. He picks up a few platters and bowls on his way, sweets and savories both, and by the time he has reached Dwalin, he has more food than he’s sure he’ll be able to eat. No matter, he’ll save some of it for Bilbo, protect it from Bombur.

“I thought you ate,” Dwalin says, a strange greeting, and Kili shrugs, tearing a piece off a sweet bread and popping it into his mouth.

“I did,” he says as soon as he has swallowed, “but that was hours ago, and I thought I’d eat again.” Kili tears off another piece, chews and swallows, and says, “I’ve lost weight since the Blue Mountains. I might as well try to put some of it back on.”

He notices the way Dwalin turns to face him head-on, and the way Dwalin looks from Kili’s face to Kili’s neck, then to Kili’s hands and Kili’s stomach. 

“You have.” Dwalin sounds frustrated, and a little concerned when he adds, “I hadn’t noticed.”

Dwalin’s attention makes Kili feel thinner than ever, as slender as an elf, and he tries to push out his stomach as subtly as he can. 

“I’m not that thin,” he tries to say, but he is--he is the thinnest one of the company by far, unless you consider Gandalf, and wizards shouldn’t count in any comparisons, because wizards are such strange people. But Kili is certainly the thinnest of the dwarves, practically bird-boned and rat-faced, and even their burglar-hobbit is thicker around than Kili is. So he cuts off his own sentence, and takes an extra large bite from the sweet bread, as though that will give him a proper stomach.

Dwalin says nothing more, but he stands there, watching Kili eat, and Kili tries hard not to fumble his food like a child. When he dunks bread into the thick cream, he is careful to duck his head so he doesn’t drip the cream on the tables, and when he eats the sweet breads, he licks the honey and sugar from his fingers. He works his way through the majority of a cheese platter and the entirety of a bread bowl, and he is trying to decide which breads to start on next when he notices Dwalin’s face.

Dwalin has been looking more concerned by the moment, as though he’s actually horrified by Kili’s appetite, when Kili knows for a fact that Ori eats nearly twice as much as him (and even that is nowhere near the amount of food Bombur will eat, given the chance). By now, Dwalin’s face is twisted into something that Kili thinks might be a mixture of disgust and admiration.

“You’ll eat yourself into a stupor,” Dwalin says, but his tone sounds almost reverential. 

“I’ll sleep it off,” Kili says back absently, tipping the bowl to look for another roll stuffed with cheese. There’s one left, tucked underneath a thick slice of bread, and Kili breaks it in half, leaving half of the roll in the bowl for Bilbo. He is licking a dangling string of cheese from his thumb when Dwalin asks,

“Where?”

“What?” Kili asks back, feeling a little startled. Dwalin is looking down the porch, towards the other dwarves, and Kili looks down that way, too, then looks back at Dwalin.

“Where,” Dwalin repeats, and he’s still looking away from Kili, “will you sleep it off?”

Dwalin’s words seem heavy with promise, and Kili drags his thumb slowly away from his mouth. His chest feels full, like his heart is trying to beat through stone, and his face is growing hot.

“In the clover,” he says, and his voice sounds like it coming from miles away. “Out beyond the hedges.”

Dwalin looks back at Kili then, and his eyes dart down to Kili’s thumb, then up to Kili’s face. Kili’s face feels as though it is burning. 

“You shouldn’t go past the hedges alone,” Dwalin says, but it sounds too heavy to be a scolding, or even a caution.

“Will I be?” Kili asks back, and it must be excitement that is making his heart feel so heavy and uneven. “Alone, I mean?”

Kili can just catch the hints of Dwalin’s smile, lost beneath Dwalin’s beard, and it is answer enough. Kili shoves the half of the roll into his mouth and tries not to choke when Dwalin says,

“Don’t eat too quickly.”

Kili doesn’t watch Dwalin leave: he busies himself with separating the cheeses instead, arranging them on a platter to keep his hands busy. He’s no longer hungry, his stomach too twisted in knots for him to even think about food, and he is certain that if he is not doing something, his hands may begin to shake. When the cheeses are piled together by color, he begins consolidating the breads, rolls and slices of bread and twists of sweet bread.

“Bilbo,” he calls, when he can think of nothing else to do to waste time, “there is more food down here--”

Bilbo is exuberant in his thanks, gasping, “Oh, thank you--I thought it had all been eaten.” 

Kili is passing the platter of cheeses to Bilbo when Bilbo says, “Kili, your hands are shaking.”

Kili looks down at his hands, at how the platter is jittering, and says, “I drank too much last night. I should--” he waves his hand out towards the grass, like that will explain things, and Bilbo makes a half-interested sound before turning back to the food.

Kili cuts through the dark hall, where Thorin is sleeping and Fili is playing some kind of luck game with Nori. No one calls out to Kili, or even seems to notice him, and so when he’s through the hall, he jogs to the hedges, and then around them.

The clover is not far from Beorn’s hall, and Kili can hear the roaring buzz of the bees before he can smell the flowers. The clover is tall, coming up past Kili’s knees, and Kili is not sure if that’s how all clover should be, or if the clover is as gigantic as Beorn’s bees. Either way, he feels like he is wading through green water as he pushes through the tangles of stems and leaves and blossoms. The smell of the flowers is heady and the droning of the bees is wonderfully monotonous, and Kili thinks that he has picked a very good place indeed.

“Are you here to protect me, then?” Kili asks when he reaches Dwalin. Dwalin is sitting in the midst of an especially tall patch of clover, and it is only by luck that Kili spots the top of Dwalin’s head. 

Dwalin looks up at Kili, squinting against the late morning sun, and says, “That is what I strive for.”

Kili can’t stop his laughter, high and awkward and pathetically pleased, and he sinks down to sit close to Dwalin, there in the tall clover. Dwalin is smiling at Kili, looking nearly as pleased as Kili feels, and Kili thinks that, yes, he loves this dwarf--he must love this dwarf.

There is a stupor setting in on his brain, from the food and from Dwalin’s closeness, and Kili gives in to it, holding his tongue and closing his eyes and listening to the rasp of Dwalin’s breath. 

“What will you do with your treasure?” Kili asks after a long while. His belly doesn’t feel as achingly full as it did when he left the hall, and the sunlight is spread warmly across his shoulders. 

“My treasure?” Dwalin’s eyes are closed, and his voice sounds slow and sleepy. It feels like a powerful thing, to hear Dwalin as anything less than alert.

“When you get it,” Kili clarifies. “What will you want to do with it?”

Dwalin makes a slow humming noise, then says, still with that sleepy voice, “Keep it. Use it to build up an even greater treasury, enough to be the envy of any dwarf.” Dwalin yawns and sighs, then asks, “And you?”

Kili shrugs and says, “I won’t get mine, not really. Ours--Thorin’s and Fili’s and mine--will all stay together, in the treasure room. It will, uh, belong to the throne. I will still have rights to it,” he says quickly, because Dwalin has looked at him sharply and Kili feels the need to defend himself, and to defend Thorin in particular. “And Thorin will give me whatever I want, within reason.”

“And what will you want?” There’s a curious look on Dwalin’s face, like he really wants to know, and Kili feels pleased at that, that he’s caught Dwalin’s attention.

“Dogs,” he says. Dwalin lifts his eyebrows at him and Kili elaborates. “Hunting dogs. Hounds to hunt deer and boar. And the little ones, the ones that will follow foxes and stoats into their burrows.”

“You want dogs,” Dwalin says softly, and Kili tries not to feel foolish as he says,

“I used to see them in the human towns. Thorin said that there were hounds in Dale, and that sometimes his hunting parties would take them along.”

Dwalin is smiling again. “An heir to the throne of Erebor,” he says, “with a mountain of gold to fill your desires, and all you will want is a pack of dogs.”

Kili snorts and says, “That’s not all I want,” but when Dwalin lifts his chin at him, Kili finds himself at a bit of a loss of what else he _should_ want. “Hawks and falcons,” he says lamely, his mind a blank, “and new hunting leathers.”

“Hunting leathers,” Dwalin says with a strange laugh, and he grabs Kili’s face roughly, holding tight as he leans in and kisses Kili’s mouth. “You’re a prince,” he says against Kili’s mouth. “I would see you draped in gold.”

There is an empty, hungry feeling growing in Kili’s stomach, and he tries to kiss Dwalin back, following as Dwalin tries to pull away.

“And nothing else?” Kili asks, curling a hand in Dwalin’s shirt and murmuring the words against Dwalin’s skin. “Gold and nothing else?”

Kili can feel Dwalin’s laugh, exploding across Kili’s face and lips in a breath of air. “Naught but gold and skin.”

Dwalin is teasing him, Kili _knows_ that Dwalin is teasing him, but Kili is still utterly breathless, his heart pounding and his head dizzy. His lips feel hot where they’re pressed against Dwalin’s skin, and he wants to touch all of Dwalin, the muscles and the scars and the thick hair; he wants to pull Dwalin up against him, until Dwalin is lying in the cradle of Kili’s hips.

“Do you want me?” Kili asks, tugging at Dwalin’s shirt with one hand and tentatively touching Dwalin’s thigh with the other. He wants to touch Dwalin, see if Dwalin is growing as hard and heavy as Kili is, but if Dwalin isn’t--if Dwalin doesn’t, Kili thinks he might die of pain and shame.

Dwalin’s hands are still cupped around Kili’s face, holding Kili steady, and Dwalin’s thumbs are smoothing across Kili’s cheeks. “Aye, lad,” Dwalin says, “more than I should.” His voice is hoarse and strained; Kili feels a punch of pride and arousal at Dwalin’s voice. 

He moves his hand further up Dwalin’s thigh, but before his fingers are even near the laces of Dwalin’s trousers, Dwalin has grabbed Kili’s arm, twisting it like he means to break it. It _hurts_ , sharp and sudden, and Kili contorts his body, twisting as he tries to find a way to lessen the pressure on his arm.

“Don’t,” Dwalin says, and now his voice sounds utterly wrecked; Kili can remember Balin, on the porch, saying, _He won’t mean to._

“You’ll break my arm,” Kili gasps, and he twists further as Dwalin tightens his grip before letting go, like a reflex. Kili pulls his arm to his chest, holding it gingerly. Dwalin’s face looks as shocked as Kili feels, and Kili feels a mix of fear and anger and pity for him.

It is Dwalin who speaks first, because Kili doesn’t trust his own voice, or his own words.

“You shouldn’t touch me,” Dwalin says, as though that explains everything, and Kili pushes back, is always pushing back, can’t stop himself from pushing for more. (Dis always says that he’ll push until he gives out, that he’ll push until he’s nothing but ash.)

“Why shouldn’t I?” Kili asks defensively. “You’ve touched me, why shouldn’t I be able to touch you?”

“This isn’t a game, Kili,” Dwalin snaps. “There are lines we cannot cross--”

“They’ve already been crossed,” Kili says sharply. He’s clenching his hands into fists now, and he wishes he could strike Dwalin. He doesn’t think he has ever felt so angry before. 

“They haven’t,” Dwalin says, Dwalin _insists_. “I won’t fuck you--”

“You already have,” Kili interrupts, but Dwalin interrupts him right back, saying,

“I haven’t, Kili.”

And it is an ugly feeling, wondering if Rivendell meant nothing, if it was nothing for Kili to be so agonized over; if Dwalin touching Kili is utterly inconsequential to everyone but Kili. “In Rivendell,” Kili says, and his voice sounds so small now--he feels so small now, humiliated that it has meant so much to him, when it must not mean anything to Dwalin.

“I didn’t fuck you,” Dwalin says, and his voice is gruff but even; he’s calm again, as unflappable as ever, and it is so unfair that none of this bothers him as it bothers Kili. 

“You touched me,” Kili stutters, because he doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it; because he doesn’t know how not to look young and foolish, when everything he’d thought is being torn apart and redefined.

“But you didn’t touch me.” Dwalin breathes in deeply and lets it out in a sigh. He looks even bigger than he had when he had been twisting Kili’s arm, and Kili leans back from him. “It’s different, there are--” Dwalin hesitates, looking lost for a moment.

It doesn’t matter. Kili stands and though Dwalin reaches for him, Dwalin doesn’t touch him.

“Kili,” Dwalin says, and his voice isn’t steady anymore. There is a tremor in it, barely audible, but it is enough to make Kili wait. “There are things you cannot do. There are different expectations for you, and if you cross them--”

“They’ve already been crossed!” Kili is shouting, but he can’t stop it, can’t quiet his voice or slow his heart or calm his furious body. “I’ve already offered you my bed, there’s no-one else--there can’t be anyone else, it’s too _late_ already--”

“Be quiet, you idiot,” Dwalin roars back at Kili, and he’s still sitting in clover, like a giant of a dwarf playing children’s games, but his voice is terrible and frightening. Kili’s mouth goes dry and his throat goes tight, and he takes a step back, further away from Dwalin. Dwalin’s face looks almost as though it’s cracking, losing what calmness he had regained, and when he speaks, his voice is rough and sounds angry. “I told you that I will love you, and I will. I’ll take your bed, but not until Erebor.”

“Why,” Kili tries to ask, and Dwalin snarls at him,

“Because I won’t treat you like a whore.”

Kili turns then, and fights his way back through the clover, back to Beorn’s hall, and Dwalin does not call after him.


	9. Chapter 9

Kili spends the rest of the day sitting with Bifur. Bifur only has one whittling knife now, and they share it, passing it back and forth as Bifur shows Kili how to make snug little gears to fit inside a mechanical box. It is soothing, all the more so for all that Bifur’s words are incomprehensible. 

“It’s just his words,” Bofur had said months ago, when they had all started out from the Shire. “He knows what he wants to say, but the wrong words come out.”

Sometimes Kili likes to try to puzzle the words out, to figure out what Bifur means. Bifur usually talks about flowers and fruit and the weather--tulips and rue, strawberries and chokecherries, rain and wind. It’s like poetry, perhaps, simple words meaning not so simple things. 

Kili doesn’t have the heart for puzzles, though, not today, and so he makes noncommittal noises as Bifur mutters darkly, “Purple rain in the trees,” and even more darkly, “Yellow carnations in the honey.” 

“Yellow carnations,” Kili repeats back blandly, and Bifur snorts and takes the whittling knife from Kili.

By evening they have a box that will open when its lever is cranked, and Kili feels far more accomplished than he has in weeks. Bifur gives the box to Kili and, when Kili tries to shove the box back, says, “Purple has gold.”

“Right,” Kili says, though he is unsure what Bifur means, and then adds, “Thank you,” because even if Bifur’s words are scrambled, his kindness is plain.

Gandalf calls everyone into the hall before the sunlight is gone, and he closes the heavy doors of the hall, saying, “We’ll stay in again tonight. There is no need for concern,” he adds, “but it is best to do as your host asks.”

The hall is subdued in the absence of Beorn. The meal is a quiet affair, when Kili considers it against the meal of the day before, and there seems to be a melancholy taste in the air. When the meal is over, and the animals are clearing away the trestle tables, the dwarves drag the sawn off logs that have been serving as chairs close to the fire. Kili finds a spot between Fili and Bombur, and when he sees Dwalin sit only a few dwarves away, he looks away, to the other side of the circle.

There’s no dancing, though a few of the dwarves sing, and the rest talk amongst themselves. Kili is showing his carved box to Bombur, who is flatteringly impressed with Kili’s progress, when Ori says loudly, “Don’t believe him, Bilbo, he’s a liar.”

Kili looks over, the same as the rest of the circle: Ori is laughing, hard enough that he has hidden his face behind his hands, and Bofur is obviously struggling to remain straight-faced as he talks to Bilbo. Bilbo is sitting between the two of them, and he is looking cautiously amused, like he will join in on the laughter once he’s sure it’s not aimed at him.

“It’s true,” Bofur insists, and Ori is grabbing blindly at Bilbo, choking out,

“Don’t believe him, it’s not true, no one would ever--”

“They would, I swear, I was there myself,” Bofur says, and he’s giggling now, too, his voice cracking. Ori laughs harder, and it is a curious thing, to see Ori be so close to a dwarf who is not his kin. Later, when he’s trying to fall asleep, Kili will think that is why Dori interrupts then, sounding as peevish as he does.

“What in Durin’s Name--Ori, let go of Mister Baggins at once.” Ori does so, letting go of Bilbo’s jacket as though it is on fire, and Dori adds, “And do try to breathe.”

“It’s nothing,” Bilbo says. Perhaps he is trying to save Ori from a scolding--if so, it is a silly concern. Kili can’t remember a time that Dori truly became angry with Ori, or was even able to scold Ori without shower Ori with presents and sweets for the rest of the day. Even now, it’s obvious that Dori’s irritation is all focused on Bofur. Still, Bilbo’s saying to Dori, “I had just told Bofur that we tell stories at night in the Shire, and so he was telling one to me.”

“Tell me, Master Baggins,” Thorin asks at once, “what do hobbits speak of, on nights like this?” Thorin looks honestly curious, utterly focused on Bilbo, and the rest of the circle leans in, like hounds caught on a scent.

Kili feels a flare of sympathy for Bilbo; as wonderful as Thorin’s attention may be, Thorin’s attention is never alone. Thorin is never alone, and whatever Thorin sees, a hundred other dwarves see. Kili knows that well--his mother’s house was always filled by Thorin’s followers and hangers-on, and Kili knows how heavy dozens of eyes can feel, when they are all fixed on you.

Bilbo shifts awkwardly, as though he feels like a rabbit caught in a trap, but when Gandalf clears his throat, Bilbo rallies and says, “Well, stories to frighten children, I suppose.”

“Such as?” someone asks--Gloin, perhaps.

“Oh, I don’t know. Bugbears, goblins, wolves. Dead things, and ghosts. Aren’t all children scared of the same things?” 

“Some of the same things,” Gloin says, and Kili wants to be a part of this conversation, too, so he interrupts, saying,

“Like wargs and goblins.” It feels like an echo of the night Fili and Kili had teased Bilbo over goblins. Kili can feel Thorin’s eyes on him--he is certain he can feel Thorin’s eyes--but he elbows Fili and says, “That’s what scared us. That’s what Dori always told us stories of. Things that could eat us if we were bad.”

Dori snorts, but he looks pleased somehow, as though he’s happy that Kili’s remembered anything that Dori had told him. “It was the only way,” Dori says, and his voice sounds far less peevish than before, “to make any of you mind me.”

“Should’ve thrown them out of the mountain for a night or two, scare them properly,” Bofur says with a laugh, and Dori’s face picks up that pinched look again. Whatever Dori was going to say, though, is never said--Bilbo pipes up again, leaning forward on his stump.

“Are there worse thing?” Bilbo asks, and Kili thinks it’s an odd question. From the way Fili shifts next to him, Fili thinks so, too. “Only,” Bilbo says, when everyone is looking towards him, “wargs and goblins are frightening to hobbits because we never see them. Now that I have, I think they’re still frightening, but--well, I suppose it sounds silly, but in the Shire, goblins and wargs seem to be as real as bugbears and--and ghosts, which is to say, not very real at all. A story to scare children at night, but nothing that could actually harm us.”

“What,” Fili asks next to Kili, and he’s pinching Kili’s arm, “you don’t believe in ghosts?”

“Of course not,” Bilbo says, and Kili sees, from the corner of his eye, Gandalf sit up straight. 

“But you have seen wargs and goblins.” Thorin huffs before he continues, “There are many things that live beneath the ground, Master Baggins, and we have learned to keep our peace with them, and to not speak ill of them.”

“Or to speak of them at all,” Balin adds, seeming to frown at the circle at large. “All things have their time and place--and some are not meant for our ears, nor our tongues.”

The mood in the circle is shattered; Bilbo seems to be trying to disappear by sheer force of will, if the way he is staring at his feet is any indication. Kili himself can feel the awkwardness of the circle, but it feels like nothing compared to the prickling of his skin between his shoulder blades; he has never seen the ghosts of the mines, but he has watched his mother pour out wine and burn meat on the holy days. He knows what things cry beneath the ground, and now he can think of nothing else but the great size of Beorn’s hall and the vast, empty darkness that is looming behind his back.

Kili looks across the circle, to where Thorin is sitting; instead of Thorin, though, he catches Dwalin’s eyes. Dwalin’s eyes are dark beneath his heavy brow, and the grimness of his face makes the skin of Kili’s back prickle all the more. Kili scowls at Dwalin, as pointedly as he can, then looks away, just in time to catch sight of Bofur hissing something into Bilbo’s ear. Bilbo shakes his head, still staring at his feet.

“Poor Bilbo,” Fili whispers into Kili’s ear, and Kili nods. He leans a little to the side, so his weight is pressed against Fili’s shoulder, and he murmurs,

“We should rescue him somehow.”

Before Fili can offer any suggestions, though, and even before Kili can do something he will surely regret, Thorin leans forward, speaking to Dori loudly enough that the entirety of the circle is turning to listen.

“What other things did you tell my nephews?” Thorin asks, and Kili watches as Dori very nearly bristles, his whole body drawing up like the old fussy cat Dori used to keep. When Dori opens his mouth, Kili almost expects to hear Dori spit like a cat.

“Not the worst that I’ve seen, certainly,” Dori says in a very forced voice.

“And what is the worst that you have seen?” Thorin asks. He is smiling, just a little--Kili only catches the hint of it when Thorin turns his head and the firelight lights the side of his face. “Was it something you saw while living in the cities of Men? Behind those mighty walls?”

Thorin and Dori aren’t close, not like Thorin and Dwalin are, or Thorin and Balin. For all that Kili has seen Thorin and Dori bicker dozens of times, and sometimes whisper together, and even (however rarely) laugh together, he has never seen them tease each other. He knows why, now--Thorin’s words sound cruel and mocking, and Thorin’s smile only looks mean-spirited.

Thorin must realize his slight as quickly as everyone else. He scowls and says, “It’s no matter,” but the damage is already done. Nori’s hissing,

“ _Dori_ ,”

and Dori is staring at Ori. When Nori grabs Dori’s sleeve, tugging, Dori slowly turns away from Ori and opens his mouth, saying, “We lived in the upper halls. Where the cousins of the kings lived. You remember?”

Kili looks back at Thorin, but Thorin’s mouth is firmly shut. It is Balin who says, “I remember.”

Dori, when Kili looks back, is nodding. “Rindr--my mother--she was a cousin. Distant, though. Very distant. The king wouldn’t have bothered with us, but there were few women related by blood. 

“Our rooms were beautiful. Mother was a weaver, and she always had the most beautiful things brought in. We had rugs on all the floors, and the tapestries were covered in gold and silver. It was very--very pretty.” Dori frowns at something, then shrugs. “I was in our rooms when the dragon came.”

Thorin hisses, then says in a low voice, “I didn’t know you were in the mountain.”

“I was, but I can’t remember why. I think I had been scolded for something.” Dori shifts on his stump, as though he is uncomfortable, but his voice isn’t fussy, and his hands are lying in his lap, clasped together. “I thought it was a cave-in. The roar, I mean, I could hear the mountain roaring, like it was collapsing. So I thought I would stay there, in the rooms. Out of anyone’s way, and where my parents could find me.”

It is quiet when Dori pauses; the only sound is the crackle of Beorn’s massive fire. Kili doesn’t know if anyone else is looking at Dori, and he can’t look away to see. Dori’s face is blank, but while Kili is looking, Dori begins to tap his thumbs together.

“My mother found me. She left--” Dori hesitates, looking towards Thorin, then says, “She should have stayed, but she left, and she came to find me. When she opened the door, I could hear the screaming. It was loud, very loud.”

Dori goes quiet again, and after a moment, it is Dwalin who prompts, “And the dragon?”

“Oh,” Dori says, as though he has forgotten his story was unfinished. “I saw it. It moved--” He twists his arm in the air, in a wide, corkscrew-like motion. It is entrancing, and Kili cannot look away. “It moved,” Dori says, “like the watersnakes that lived in the mountain lake. It was beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” Thorin says in a voice like a snarl, and Dori gives an ugly looking smile.

“Beautiful,” Dori repeats. “Red and yellow and orange, like fire. It was beautiful.” He sighs, long and heavy, and stands from his stump. “That is the worst I’ve seen. I’m for bed, now.”

As Dori moves away from the circle, Thorin mutters something that Kili cannot hear and gets up, following after Dori. 

“They’ll fight,” Fili says, and Kili can only say back,

“They always fight.”

The circle that Bilbo had cracked is now well and truly broken. Nori is twisted around on his stool, like he’ll be able to see Dori and Thorin’s row from across the hall if he just squints hard enough. Everyone else is shifting awkwardly, like they aren’t sure whether Thorin has given them leave to disperse. Kili scowls at his own feet, then stands and says, “Ori, Bilbo, come on. We’ll smoke together.”

They all settle on the mattress that Fili and Kili have been sharing, and Kili and Bilbo trade tips on blowing smoke rings while Fili teases Ori into a better mood. If Kili strains his eyes, he can see what he thinks is Thorin, standing on the far end of the hall. Thorin’s hands are moving, so he must be talking--arguing, or perhaps apologizing: they sometimes seem to be the same thing, when it is Thorin who is speaking.

When Kili is sleepily ghosting smoke rings, Bilbo says, “Well, you still fight less than cousins in the Shire.”

Kili snorts and lets himself fall back until he is only propped up by his elbows. “Then I’m glad we’re not traveling with hobbits,” he says, and Bilbo’s laugh is loud and bright.

“So am I,” Bilbo says. Kili has never been good at reading another person’s sincerity, but he thinks that Bilbo is being sincere--Bilbo is smiling at him, looking far happier than he had only an hour before, and Kili thinks that perhaps Bilbo really is happy to be traveling with a company of dwarves.

“And I’m glad that you’re with us,” Kili mutters, just loud enough for Bilbo to hear. Bilbo’s face brightens even more and Kili rolls his eyes, then says, “Would you like to hear another story?”

They tell stories together, the four of them, whispering as the hall falls asleep. Fili and Kili tell the stories they can remember Dis telling them when they were little, arguing over the details until Kili pinches Fili’s stomach. Kili sprawls across the mattress, lying his head on Fili’s leg, and he lifts his hands into the air, sketching the shapes of goblins and boars and mountains as Fili plays with his hair. Bilbo tells stories from the Shire, hobbit stories about white blizzards and giant wolves and things that scream in the forest at night.

“I’m no longer surprised hobbits don’t venture into the forest,” Fili says, and Kili agrees with him, says, 

“I think I would’ve been frightened to leave the house at night, too.” 

Kili falls asleep in the middle of one of Bilbo’s stories, when Bilbo is trying to explain something to Ori. He wakes when he feels someone jostling him, but it is only Fili, shoving Kili over and whispering, “Here, the blanket--go back to sleep, Kili.”

Kili sighs, dragging the blanket up over his shoulder and tucking his face down against the mattress again.

When he dreams, he dreams of strange things, of deep rivers where shadows lurk at the bottom with grasping hands and slimy skin, and of boars crashing through snow-blasted forests, and of mountains filled with water-snakes the color of fire. He wakes before dawn, feeling cold and sweaty and painfully out of breath. Fili is sleeping beside him, sprawled across the mattress, and Kili rolls over and grabs at Fili’s sleeve, fisting his hands in the fabric.

“Kili?” Fili asks, his voice muffled and burred with sleep. He’s shifting, just enough so he can look at Kili, and he pats at Kili’s hand clumsily. 

“‘s nothing,” Kili mumbles, and he tucks his face against Fili’s arm. “Only dreams.”

He falls asleep again, hiding his face against Fili’s body. He has no more dreams, or if he does, he does not remember them.

Beorn returns in the late morning, bringing with him a warg skin and a goblin head to pin to his gate. He seems to be an excellent mood, laughing and picking up poor Bilbo, and even patting Gandalf on the shoulder with a hand that looks like it could flatten Gandalf with very little effort.

“I’d forgotten how big he was,” Kili whispers to Fili, and Fili shoves at Kili’s shoulder and laughs.

Beorn promises them supplies, and the rest of the day is spent in packing. He gives them food, more food than Kili thinks they will be able to carry, and empty waterskins and thick blankets; he even gives them bows and arrows, though Kili is unsure where Beorn would have gotten weapons small enough to be used by the dwarves. Thorin sends Kili out to the yard, where Kili tests the draw of each bow, the grip and the flex of the wood.

By the time it is dark out, the company is ready for an early morning departure. Beorn talks to Thorin and Gandalf long into the night, telling them which way to go, what to look for in the forest. Kili lies on the mattress he is sharing with Fili, and listens to them talk for a long while: Beorn’s voice is a loud grumble, deeper even than Thorin’s voice, and Kili falls asleep to its sound.

The morning comes far too soon, and when it does, it is a frenzy of dwarves eating breakfast and arranging packs and saddling ponies. Kili is helping Ori rearrange the baggage on one of the ponies when Bilbo pops up beside him, like a wraith melting out of the very sunlight. Kili bites back a shout of alarm and Ori yanks too hard on the pony’s girth strap, causing the pony to snort and sidestep.

“Oh,” Bilbo says, “I’m sorry--did I startle you?”

“It’s fine.” Kili’s heart feels like it has jumped halfway out of his chest, and he has to clap his hand to his chest, take a breath. “You’re quiet, is all--what is it?”

Bilbo apologizes again, then says, “Dwalin was looking for you, but he had to speak with Balin, so he asked me to find you, and give you this. He said you left it at the breakfast table.”

It is a wooden bead, half the length of Kili’s little finger; the wood is fair, nearly the color gold, and Kili’s crest is carved deeply into the wood, the sharp lines of the crest curving around the width of the bead. Kili turns the bead over in his hands, then shoves it into his coat pocket. As an apology, it is a flimsy one. 

“Thank you,” he says to Bilbo with a smile, and Bilbo smiles back.

x

The Mirkwood is an eery sort of place, heavy and dark and oppressive even during the daytime. The very air is cloying, sticky-sweet and poisonous in Kili’s lungs, and he’s sure that they are all going to die within a day. Possibly an hour. 

“We should’ve gone around,” he mutters to Fili; they’re in the back, with a buffer of Bombur and Dori between them and the rest of the company. Bombur’s no snitch, he never breathes a word of anything he overhears, and Kili knows that Dori will side with Kili on pretty much everything, just on principle alone, so Kili feels safe complaining, just a little, when Thorin’s back is turned. “We’re all going to die. Probably eaten by the trees.”

Fili gives Kili an incredulous look that Kili magnanimously takes as approval and agreement. He slaps Fili on the shoulder and says, “Glad you agree.”

He can hear Bombur giggling in front of them and he smiles himself, glad that at least a few others feel the same as him about the stinking forest. 

Then the daylight fades, and it turns dark, and the forest comes alive with malice. 

It is horrible. It is horrible. It is horrible. The dark is a physical thing, pressing down on their bodies like angry hands, grasping and scratching and choking hands. The fire that Oin has lit does little--or rather, does nothing at all. The forest seems to grow even darker, like it is trying to smother the fire, and the fire blenches thick, rancid smelling smoke.

“We’ll take the watches in pairs,” Thorin says, and Kili knows that it is a concession to the forest; the watch is nearly always taken alone, unless it is Kili and Fili (and Ori, but that is because Dori never lets Ori sit for watch alone). “Dwalin, Balin, you will take the first. Everyone else, get to sleep.”

No one seems to move; Kili certainly doesn’t. He’s unsure of where to go--the smoke of the fire is thick and disgusting, and he can feel it sinking into his skin and his hair. Away from the fire, though, would be just as bad; he can see eyes, jewel-bright and utterly alien, on either side of the pathway, peering through the darkness into the camp.

And, he wonders, what is the point of even unrolling his blankets, when he knows he won’t be able to sleep? Thorin makes the decision for him, grabbing Kili’s arm and, considering the muffled curse from beside Kili, Fili’s arm, too. 

“Sleep close to me,” Thorin says, and he drags them closer to the fire, close enough that Kili can actually see Fili and Thorin’s faces. Fili looks as disturbed as Kili feels, and even Thorin looks wary. Thorin makes a show of laying out his bedding, kicking away stones and twigs before he shakes out his blankets with a snap.

Kili follows his lead, laying his blankets out in the space between Thorin and the fire. It puts Fili at Kili’s back, and Thorin at Kili’s front, and Kili is not ashamed to be grateful for it, to have some sort of barrier (and, he will freely admit, he is glad not to be closest to the fire). 

“Sleep,” Thorin says when Kili has tucked himself up in his blankets. Thorin is lying on his side, his back to the forest, and he is looking at Kili and Fili. Kili can see a pair of brilliant green eyes behind Thorin blink slowly, the faint firelight making the eyes glint. Kili shudders and Thorin says, “Close your eyes and the night will pass.”

Kili closes his eyes, and when he sleeps, it is uneasily.

The morning sunrise is greeted gratefully. Kili is tired, and everyone else looks as tired as he feels. Still, it is far better to be up and moving in the light, then trying to sleep in the dark. The company eats only a little, and they begin to walk down the strange forest path.

The forest seems as threatening as it did the day before--at least, that is what Kili thinks during the morning hours. By the time the company has stopped to rest and drink a little water, Kili is feeling rather certain that the forest is more threatening than the day before. The trees seem to be even larger than before, crowded in on the pathway, and there are roots breaking up through the soil, looking to trip them all.

The day passes far too quickly, and soon the forest is growing dark. The company huddles together on the pathway again, building a smoky, oily fire and trying to ignore the glitter of eyes approaching their fire. This night is already promising to be as bad as the last. When Thorin spreads out his blankets, pointedly leaving a space between himself and the fire again, Kili throws his blankets into the empty space, leaving just enough room for Fili.

The nightmares begin on the third night, crashing down on them like a landslide. Perhaps it is because everyone is tired enough to sleep deeply enough to dream.

Kili is sitting up with Fili and Thorin--Thorin had tapped them for the first watch, and then he’d sat down beside them, murmuring something about not feeling tired yet. In another place, Kili would have been insulted, but here, in this ugly forest, he feels only gratitude that Thorin is sitting up with him.

Fili and Thorin are quietly arguing over taxations and Kili is peeling long strips of bark from the wood gathered for the fire when the first shout comes. It is a wordless shout, short and gruff sounding, and before it has ended, Thorin is leaping to his feet. The camp is coming alive, dwarves cursing and leaping to their feet. Kili is reaching for his own sword, feeling a rush of excitement and fear, when another voice shouts from across the fire.

“A nightmare--it’s only a nightmare!”

“Who,” Thorin calls in a sharp-sounding voice, and the voice calls back,

“Gloin had a nightmare, is all.”

And that is how it begins--Kili thinks nothing of it, and he is sure no one else does, either. The company settles back down to sleep, and Fili and Thorin begin their argument anew, and Kili goes back to shredding bark from pieces of wood.

The nightmares don’t stop. They come every other night, and then every night, and it seems like everyone is waking up with a shout or a cry or fighting their blankets. 

“It’s this forest,” Dwalin says one day, when he is walking beside Kili. Kili is tired and cross--it feels as though he hasn’t slept in days.

“What is?” he asks, and Dwalin says,

“It’s the forest that’s giving us the dreams. It’s not a place meant for our people.” 

Dwalin gives Kili a long look--longer than Kili can be bothered to look back. Kili turns to look ahead of himself, because he has already tripped over far too many roots. It is a while before Dwalin says, “You’re cross with me.”

“Yes,” Kili says, feeling even more tired; he had forgotten that he was angry with Dwalin, and now that he’s reminded of it, he only feels childish and surly. “I’m cross with everyone. It’s this forest.”

That night, he sleeps next to Fili, and he tries not to notice how Dwalin lays out a bedroll near Thorin’s feet, within arms reach of Kili. When Thorin taps Dwalin and Balin for the first watch, Kili rolls onto his side, and lets himself fall asleep.

He dreams, but he’ll never remember of what. Rivers, perhaps, or the marshlands on the northwestern slopes of the Blue Mountains; fire wisps and the dead, white things that cry in the mine shafts. Maybe he dreams of nothing at all, and perhaps it is only the creaking of the trees that frightens him awake.

When Kili does wake up, it is to find himself choking. He can’t catch his breath; the dark is too heavy and thick, seeping into his lungs like sticky mud, filling up his throat and his lungs and his stomach with dread. 

“Shh,” he hears someone hush him, and he thinks it might be Dwalin--it sounds like Dwalin, like when Dwalin had pushed him against a tree and pressed his mouth against Kili’s neck and thrust his hands into Kili’s trousers. Kili can remember it, the weight of Dwalin’s body between Kili’s legs, and the darkness feels even worse, like slimy hands on Kili’s skin, pressing over Kili’s face and Kili’s stomach.

“Kili, hush,” Dwalin whispers, and he’s grabbing Kili’s face, holding it tight between his hands. If Kili could breathe, he thinks he might scream. “Hush, hush,” Dwalin whispers, when Kili doesn’t _want_ to hush. “Hush, hush, you need to breathe--”

Kili is grasping and clawing at Dwalin’s hands, trying to pull them away, but Dwalin is holding tighter, twisting Kili’s body so Kili’s pressed against Dwalin. It is like when Dwalin had twisted Kili’s arm, like he’d meant to break it, except now it feels as though Dwalin means to break Kili’s body. He can feel Dwalin’s chest against his own, rising and falling, and he can’t hold back his shudders. Dwalin presses his mouth against Kili’s face, against the corner of Kili’s mouth, and it shocks Kili, makes him choke on what breath he has.

When he gasps for breath, he feels Dwalin’s lips move, dry and rasping against the scruff of Kili’s stubble. When he lets the breath out, Dwalin’s mouth moves again, and again when Kili breathes in. It is sudden, like a dam breaking--he’s sobbing for breath, huge, deep lungfuls of the forest’s thick air. The air feels wet in Kili’s throat and lungs, but now he can’t stop breathing it in, faster and deeper. He can feel himself growing faint, like he’s drowning on the air.

Kili’s body is going numb and cold, like his flesh is dying, and when someone touches his chest, he can feel the heat of their hand through his clothes like a firebrand. His chest is heaving, gasping for more air, and he lets go of Dwalin’s hands so he can clutch on the hand on his chest.

“Let me,” Fili’s voice says from behind Kili, and Kili doesn’t know if Fili is saying it to him or to Dwalin. Dwalin pulls away from Kili’s face, much too slowly. The hand on Kili’s chest--it must be Fili’s--pulls Kili back sharply, until Kili’s whole back is pressed against Fili’s chest, and then Fili’s other hand is clamping tight over Kili’s mouth.

“Through your nose,” Fili says in Kili’s ear, and Kili is still gasping for breath, too much and too little, his body like it’s dying all around him. “Breathe through your nose, Kili. Slowly--”

“Slowly, slowly,” Fili keeps saying in Kili’s ear, and Kili struggles for it, to breathe in slowly enough that he doesn’t drown on the forest’s air. It seems impossible when his heart is beating as fast as a deer’s flight and his lungs feel as though they’re empty. He clutches at Fili’s hand because his whole chest hurts, like he’s on fire, but his fingers and toes are numb, and he is horribly frightened that he’ll die like this, drowning on the damned air of this disgusting forest, never reaching Erebor. 

The world seems to shrink down to Fili and Kili--Fili’s voice in Kili’s ear, and his hand on Kili’s face; the tingling pain of Kili’s body. Kili clutches at Fili’s hand and at his own chest, and he can feel his fingers spasm at each of Fili’s breaths, as Fili says, “Good--good. Slowly, Kili.”


	10. Chapter 10

“There’s something following us,” Ori says one day. Kili has taken to walking close to Ori, because Dori is always within arm’s reach of Ori, and Kili can think of few dwarves he’d rather be beside if the worst should happen.

“It’s your imagination,” Dori says immediately, as sensible as ever--but he looks over his shoulder, towards the trees they have just passed, and Kili feels a little shudder go down his spine. If even Dori is beginning to falter, then the worst cannot be far behind.

“There’s something there,” Ori insists, and Bofur says, from where he is walking behind Kili and Fili,

“There’s something evil in this forest.”

“Ridiculous,” Dori says, still so sensibly, and when Ori makes an affronted noise, Dori adds, “Even if there is, talking of it won’t get us out of here any faster.”

Their food runs out the next day. It is only another day before their water is gone, too, and for all his teasing and his complaining, Kili had never truly thought that they would die in this forest. Now, though, it seems inevitable--his stomach is tight with hunger and his head is already beginning to ache from thirst.

That night, no one lays out any bedding. They sit huddled together, utterly miserable. If they were meant to die--Kili wishes he could have died somewhere else, in Erebor or Ered Luin--or maybe even further east, in the Iron Hills or the deserts where his father lives. He’s thinking on this, wondering how his mother will hear about them, and how much she will cry, when he hears someone hiss, then say, “There’s a light--”

Kili lets out a grunt when someone’s elbow digs into his stomach, and he twists so he can look around him. And there--yes, there--there’s a light, faint and flickering, coming through the trees, and it looks so much like firelight; a campfire, perhaps, or even torches. 

“Do you think it’s people?” Ori’s voice asks, and someone--sounding suspiciously like an irritated Dori--says,

“Of course it’s people. What else could it be?”

“They might have food,” Bombur says, and then it’s not so much a discussion of whether they should leave the path, as a discussion on _how_ they should leave the path, and if anyone should be left behind. They decide to leave the path, all of them together: Thorin in the front, and their hobbit close behind; Balin and Dwalin, and Fili and Kili next; Dori in front of Ori, and Nori right behind him; Bifur and Bombur and Bofur, and Oin and Gloin coming along last. 

“Stay close together,” Thorin says, and they all pass it dutifully down the line: 

“Stay together,” and “Hold up, I can barely see you,” and “Nori, grab Ori’s other hand, will you? Stop _fighting_ , Ori, you won’t die if we hold your hands.”

That, of course, is when the spiders come.

He doesn’t realize it’s spiders at first. At first, it’s just something heavy, throwing him to the ground. He tries to shout, but his head is shoved against the earth, and his voice is muffled by dirt and moss; it tastes like rot in his mouth, old things left too long in water, and that is the last clear thought he has--old things, left to die in the water--before he feels something bite him on the back of his neck.

The bite is sharp and hot, and he jerks, trying to kick out. He manages to kick something--friend or foe, he neither knows, nor cares--but before he can even begin to fight against the weight that is still pinning him down, he feels his body begin to tingle.

It is like the nightmare again. It is like being unable to breathe, like drowning on air. His feet go cold, and his hands, and the only thing that Kili can feel is the grit of dirt in his mouth. He struggles harder, trying to buck against the weight pinning him, but his arms can’t hold his weight. He gasps, and shouts for Thorin, but before he has finished Thorin’s name, he feels the dull prick of another bite.

The world grows distant. He can hear shouting and fighting, but it seems to be very far away. His _body_ seems to be very far away. When he moves, it feels like ripples, like his body is moving outwards, spreading like water. He tries to clutch at the ground, but his fingers are cold and slow, and he can’t feel the dirt beneath his hands. He’s not sure when he closed his eyes. His limbs feel heavy, and he feels like he’s falling; he’s tired, and his head feels like it’s all water, and he can feel his heart beating triple time.

It feels as though his heart is about to burst.

x

When the spiders are gone for certain, Kili pushes Fili away and stumbles to a tree some feet away, as far as he thinks he can get right now. He grasps onto the tree, digging his fingers into the bark, and then is loudly and disgustingly sick. They haven’t had proper food or even water for days, and so there is nothing in his stomach but acid, but his body still tries to bring something up, to somehow rid him of the spider’s poison. He gags and vomits and gags again, on thick stomach bile and nothing else. When he tries to spit and rid himself of the taste, his spit is as sour and thick as the bile, and it just makes him sick all over again.

“Kili?” someone asks. The voice is distorted in his ears, like it’s looping and twirling in the air, and he’s not sure who’s speaking. The tree that Kili is clutching seems to be twisting in Kili’s hands, like a living thing, and Kili shuts his eyes, pressing his forehead against the bark.

“‘m fine,” he tries to say, and it comes out as a slur. “Just last ‘f the poison.”

He tries breathing deeply, because he thinks that something cool and brisk would feel wonderful right now--cold water on the back of his neck, or cold air in his lungs; something cold to break through the wet heat of his nausea.

“Come on,” the distorted voice says, and there are hands grabbing at Kili’s body, pulling Kili backwards and away from the tree. “You’re going to fall in your own vomit.”

The hands pull Kili back and down, and Kili goes willingly with them. The hands lay him down on the forest floor, on the leaves and dirt, and Kili curls up tight as he can. His stomach is clenching tight, cramping on its own emptiness and the bitterness of the spiders’ poison, and he can’t help but groan.

One of the hands presses against his forehead, and the palm is hot and sweaty; it feels horrible and Kili grunts, wishing he could tell the whoever-it-is to leave him be. His grunt must make his displeasure known, because the voice makes a sympathetic sound, then fades as the hand pulls away. The person--dwarf or hobbit, Kili can’t tell--leaves him to his own suffering, and he takes to it, lying his cheek on the ground and panting as the last of the poison slowly leaves his system.

Time moves in sickening lurches. He clenches his jaw and all his muscles, trying to rein in the agony of his body--then he feels himself jerk, and he gasps for breath, wondering if he had fallen asleep, or if he had stopped breathing; then the sickness begins anew, and he groans through his clenched teeth. It feels as thought he spends days like that, but it is only hours, and maybe not even hours. When he finally pushes himself to sit up, the sun is high in the sky, streaming through the thick leaves of the trees, splashing the ground with green light.

“Kili,” Bilbo says, and he crouches in front of Kili, a tight-looking smile on his face. “Are you feeling better already? Most everyone else is still--well.”

Kili breathes in deeply through his mouth, then risks leaning to the side, so he might see around Bilbo. It looks as though all the other dwarves are still sick, and maybe even worse than Kili: they are all lying on the ground, groaning and moaning. Kili can see them shaking from where he is, and he licks his lips--so painfully dry--and asks, “Will they be alright?”

“Oh, yes,” Bilbo says, and his smile brightens a little. “You’re already up, and Fili has been up for a while. We’ve been talking, the two of us. Would you like to join us?”

It’s Fili and Bilbo who join Kili, though. When Kili tries to stand up, he ends up retching, and so Fili and Bilbo move to where he is, and they talk quietly all together, though Kili cannot say much at all. It’s not long before Fili is tugging at Kili and saying, “Lie down, you’re still sick.”

Kili lies with his head pillowed on Fili’s thigh, and Fili rubs at the nape of Kili’s neck with strong fingers. Fili is wonderful--Kili’s not sure how he can always forget how wonderful Fili is, how much he needs him. 

“You’re wonderful,” he says suddenly, and it is worth the way his stomach turns over queasily, when Fili is shocked silent.

“You’re sick,” Fili says after a few moments, and Kili says, 

“And you’re wonderful.” 

Fili makes a strange sound, then says in a grave voice, “Thank you, Kili.” 

Fili keeps rubbing at Kili’s neck with his fingers, and Kili lets himself doze as much as he can, as much as his cramping stomach will let him. As the hours pass, the other dwarves begin to stagger over to join them, Bofur first, and then Balin and Ori. As their group grows, Bilbo describes his adventures; he tells them about the spiders, and the way he had taunted the spiders; then he explains his ring, and he shows them how he can disappear; finally, he tells them about the strange little creature in the Misty Mountains, and how he’d found the ring.

“A magic ring,” Balin says, sounding as impressed as Kili is feeling. “I haven’t seen one for years--a century at least. You are certainly an asset to our Company, Master Baggins.”

Bilbo looks pleased, but he is fiddling with his pockets as though he’s flustered. When Bilbo catches Kili’s eye, Kili grins at him broadly and says, “It will only help with the dragon. Well done, Bilbo.”

By the time Bombur is able to stumble over to join their group, looking green-tinged and sweaty, Balin is saying, “We won’t be able to go anywhere today. We’ll wait for the morning.”

It’s a good plan--a marvelous plan, especially with the way Kili’s stomach is still cramping something terrible. He says as much, says, “That sounds like a very good plan,” as he tentatively uncurls, stretching out his legs.

Someone laughs and Fili pats at Kili’s shoulder, but Kili’s too tired and too pleased at not moving to be offended. He goes back to his dozing, only cracking open his eyes every now again, when Bilbo’s voice goes high with excitement, and when the others chuckle at Bilbo’s strange jokes.

It is when the light is fading that Dwalin says abruptly, “Where’s Thorin?”

And oh, Mahal, Thorin isn’t there--Kili can’t see him--Kili struggles to sit upwards, and Fili helps him, holding Kili steady as they look around their circle. Balin and Dwalin, and Oin and Gloin--Dori and Nori and Ori, too, all their cousins; and there are Bifur and Bofur and Bombur, but there is no Thorin. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” someone curses, and Fili gasps, 

“Bilbo--”

“No,” Bilbo says quickly, “I didn’t leave--I got you all down, everyone I could find. I did, I swear--”

But there is no Thorin with them, not in their circle, or even outside of it.

“Fuck,” someone says again, and Kili repeats it, snarls, “ _Fuck_ \--”

“We’ll never find him in the dark,” Bofur says, and Dwalin shifts forward at Kili’s side, saying,

“We’ll look for him in the morning. First light, we’ll go back to where the spiders were--”

The thought of the spiders makes Kili feel ill to his stomach, and he wants to protest, because the spiders--but someone else says, “We’ll never find him in this forest.”

It is probably Dori, and Kili doesn’t know if Dori is being a pessimist or a realist or, perhaps, both. Between the spiders, and the forest--and with neither food nor water--still, Kili says weakly, “We can’t leave him here.”

“We’ll look for him in the morning,” Dwalin repeats, and when Kili reaches over to grab ahold of Dwalin’s hand, no one says anything at all.

x

It is a relief when the elves come. As alien as their faces may look, they’re a great deal better than spiders, and so Kili sits down with the rest of the Company, grateful and relieved. The elves have water with them, and they share it; Kili drinks his share slowly and greedily, trying to make the water last with small sips. When his share of water is gone, he still feels parched, and he licks his lips, wishing he could ask for more.

“Here,” Dwalin says, and he shoves a waterskin at Kili. 

Kili fumbles with the waterskin, but manages to keep from spilling any of the water. He hesitates only long enough to feel the weight of the waterskin, then he raises the waterskin to his mouth, taking two gulps of water before handing the waterskin back to Dwalin.

“Thank you,” he says, as evenly as he can. Dwalin says nothing, though, only drinks the rest of his share, then passes the waterskin on to Dori.

Even when the elves insist on binding their wrists, Kili can’t feel very upset at all. There’s bound to be water wherever the elves take them, and probably food, too--and without Thorin, it doesn’t seem like there much reason to fight anything anymore, so Kili follows the elves with a half-hearted gratitude and a bone-deep feeling of relief.

He remains feeling that way throughout the entire audience with the elven king, until Thranduil sends them to be imprisoned. The guards lead the dwarves through hallways that twist ever deeper into the ground, and it’s bizarre, following elves through stone tunnels.

Kili doesn’t fight them until the elves begin to separate the dwarves. The elves take Balin first, pulling Balin away from the group and down another tunnel, and Kili panics. He knows that they’ll take him away--they will pull him away from the other dwarves, away from Dori and Bofur and Bifur and Dwalin. They’ll take him away from _Fili_ , and Kili will never see his brother again--

“Kili!” someone shouts as Kili throws himself forward, breaking free from his guards’ hands. Then the tunnel is filled with shouting, in Common and Khuzdul and Elvish. Kili isn’t shouting--it is all he can do to pant for breath as he struggles against the elves trying to grab him again--but he can hear Fili’s voice, and Dwalin’s--even Dori’s voice, snarling and cursing furiously.

It is as though Kili can see everything too sharply, too cleanly--the tunnel walls are all cold detail, the twisting of roots digging through the dirt walls, and the elves are tall and alien and ugly. He can see Fili struggling with an elf, but Dwalin isn’t fighting: Dwalin is shouting, but he’s standing still, his shoulders still under the hands of a pair of elves, and Kili feels a bizarre sense of betrayal.

Before he can make it more than two steps, he feels something hit the back of his head. 

When he comes to, he’s lying in a cell. His head is aching and his eyesight is blurry, but when he feels the back of his head gingerly, he feels only a bump, and none of the dry tackiness of blood. When his eyesight has cleared, he inspects his cell: it is small, only ten feet at most in length, and just more than half that in width. There is a drain hole in the far corner, obviously for waste, and only the width of his hand. There is a pile of straw--fresh and dry when he checks--and two roughly woven blankets. There’s nothing else in the cell, besides himself, and so he edges toward the bars at the front of the cell cautiously. 

There is a room on the other side of the bars, and it is nearly as empty as Kili’s cell; there is only a wooden chair, set against the far wall, and on the righthand wall, there is an open doorway--the way to the tunnels, he guesses. There is no one in the room, or at least, no one that he can see. 

“Hello?” he calls, very softly. No one answers, and so he tries again, a little louder. “Hello?”

His mouth and throat are dry and, when his voice cracks, he gives up on calling for anyone to hear him. He retreats back to the straw and the blankets, and after kicking the straw into as orderly a bed as he can manage, he tucks himself in, pressing his back against one stone wall and pulling the blankets up to his chin.

Time only passes with the coming of the guards. There are a handful of them, and when they unlock the door of the cell, they only open the door wide enough to push a bowl into the cell. Kili matches them caution for caution: he pushes the blankets off himself, freeing his legs, and sits up on the straw, watching the elves. When the elves are locking the door again, Kili scowls at them as fiercely as he can manage. (He doesn’t feel very fierce at all.)

And that is how time passes. The elves bring bowls of water, and of food--bread and meat, and even occasional pieces of fruit and cheese. The food is mostly bland, but there’s plenty of it, and Kili is certain he has never been so hungry in his life. Kili is unsure how many hours pass between each bowl of food; sometimes, it seems as though he’s just barely eaten, and other times, his stomach feels as though it has been rumbling emptily for hours. 

The only other thing the elves bring him is a bucket for washing. Kili washes his hair the best he can, and his skin; he thinks of washing his clothes, but the thought of sitting in the cell, naked--the thought of the elves seeing him naked--is enough to dissuade him. Still, each time the elves bring a bucket of water, Kili dunks his head, scrubbing at his face and hair, then his hands.

There is nothing else to do. He shouts at first, cursing in Common, then in Khuzdul. After the first five bowls of food, though (and he thinks that it must be two days, or perhaps three), he gives up on the shouting. Then he takes up braiding straw into baskets until he bores of that, too. He twists pieces of straw into the forms of letters, and lays them out on the floor, to spell his name, and Fili’s, and Thorin’s, and Dis’s; the entirety of his family, as far back as he can remember. He can’t decide who came before Durin III, and when the elves coming to unlock his cell, and give him another bowl of food, he wipes away his family’s line with a sweep of his arm.

He is lonely. He has never been so lonely in all his life--he has never gone so long without seeing Fili, or without speaking to anyone at all. He thinks he might go mad with it, with the longing to see someone else, someone kind, someone whom he might touch.

That is when their burglar comes, when Kili has long lost sense of time, and is aching for loneliness.

“Kili?” the familiar little voice asks in a whisper. Kili holds his breath, fear and hope both pulling tight in his chest. “Kili, are you awake?”

He scrabbles across the floor to the bars, sending straw everywhere. He bangs his knee on a rock and scrapes the heel of his hand, throwing himself at the door. He clutches a bar in each hand, looking out at the empty little room. He looks left and right, then hisses, “Bilbo?”

“Yes!” Bilbo’s voice sounds very relieved, and as though it is coming a little to Kili’s right. Kili turns his head, trying to find any hint of where Bilbo could be. There is none; Bilbo’s using that magic ring, then. “You startled me, I thought perhaps you were asleep. I’ve been looking and--Kili, Kili, you have to breathe--”

Kili is gasping for breath, his chest feeling tight. He’s pressing his head against the bars, leaning so hard he can feel the pulse in his temple beat against the metal. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe--Bilbo’s invisible little hands are suddenly on Kili’s, trying to loosen Kili’s hands from the bars, and Kili panics, says, “No, no, don’t leave me, please don’t leave me, please--”

“Oh, Kili,” Bilbo says gently, “I’m not leaving you, but you need to breathe, and you’ll hurt yourself if you hold those bars any tighter. Oh, I am very sorry that it took me so long to find you. I’ve found almost everyone, though I have no idea where they’ve put Bifur or Oin or Nori.”

Kili closes his eyes, listening to Bilbo prattle on, and he shakes and shakes and shakes, holding onto the bars as tightly as Bilbo is holding onto him.

When he’s finished shaking, lying limp and tired against the bars, Bilbo asks him, “Are you feeling better now?”

Kili’s too wrung out to feel embarrassed, so he just says, “Yes,” and lets go of the bars so he can hold onto Bilbo’s hands instead.

“Good,” Bilbo says, and then he repeats everything he’s already said, telling Kili who he’s found and where they are. Each dwarf, it seems, is in a different area, and they all seem to be as far away from one another as feasible.

“So you can’t hear each other, I suppose,” Bilbo says shrewdly. Kili thinks about how much he had screamed and shouted the first few days and decides that Bilbo is probably right.

Kili can’t say much; he’s worn down and worn out, feeling like a shade left lingering in the room. It’s a struggle to think of what to say, what could be of any use. Finally, he settles on, “How are you?”

Bilbo chuckles and Kili wishes he could see him smile. “I’m alright,” Bilbo says. “I seem to have become more of a burglar than I expected. I’m a messenger boy as well. Fili and Dwalin have been asking about you, they’ll be glad to know that I’ve found you.”

“How are they?” Kili asks, and Bilbo squeezes Kili’s hands.

“They’re fine--everyone is, really--but they’ve been worried about you. Kili, I need to leave soon. The guards will be back.”

Kili doesn’t mean to clutch at Bilbo’s hands so tightly--when Bilbo grunts in pain, Kili apologizes, trying to disentangle his fingers from Bilbo’s.

“No,” Bilbo says, “it’s alright--Bofur tried to kiss me, even though he couldn’t see me, and Gloin nearly broke my arm, he grabbed me so tight.” Bilbo says this with a chuckle, but then his voice goes grave again. “I’ll come back, Kili, I promise.”

“Right,” Kili says, and he can hear how close he is to tears. His whole face feels flushed, and he pats at Bilbo’s hands awkwardly, then sits back. “Will you--tell Fili I’m alright? And Dwalin?”

“Of course,” Bilbo’s voice says, and it’s a little further away now. “I’m going now, Kili--I promise, I’ll be back.”

And Bilbo does come back, and when he does, he whispers, “Dwalin didn’t say much, but he smiled.”

“And Fili?” Kili asks, and Bilbo says, sounding aggrieved, 

“He said too much, I couldn’t remember much of it. Something about cats and not lying, and maybe something about beating the truth out of you? I’ve forgotten it all, I’m afraid.”

And that is how it goes, for ten, twenty visits. Most of Fili’s messages are the same: _Don’t anger anyone_ , and _Be sure to eat_ , and _Don’t worry, we’ll get out of here_. Dwalin never sends any messages; instead, he sends food by way of Bilbo, chunks of torn bread stuffed with meat, the rare sliver of cheese. Kili tears the gifts of food in half, giving the larger halves back to Bilbo. Bilbo always hesitates, his hands cool and dry on Kili’s hands.

“You should eat more,” Bilbo says slowly. “If Dwalin knew--”

“He gave the food to me,” Kili says, always feeling so tired. “I can do what I want with it. He trusts my judgement.” And that is a lie--Kili doesn’t think Dwalin trusts Kili very much at all. Still, there is no one here to say otherwise, and it’s not hard at all to persuade Bilbo to listen to him.

The food disappears abruptly from Kili’s hands, whisked away into the nothingness that Bilbo has seemed to become, and Kili leans against the bars, listening to the sound of Bilbo eating. Kili’s hunger is fading day by day, along with his energy. The cell seems to grow larger, the distance from his straw to the bars lengthening. The light from the far door seems to grow weaker and weaker, shrinking away from Kili’s cell. Kili hates this place with a passion that grows duller and more bitter with each moment that passes.

When Bilbo leaves, promising to return soon, Kili crawls back to his pile of straw, dragging the blankets up over his head. It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep, but it’s not really sleep--he dozes fitfully, waking and dozing, waking and dozing. The elves come by, like they always do, and they take away the plate of food, leave him a fresh bowl of water. Kili can hear them speaking in Elvish, their words and voices so strange. He doesn’t bother sitting up or rolling over or even pulling the blanket from over his head; he lies there, listening to the elves whisper, and when the elves fall silent, Kili falls back asleep.

“Kili?” Bilbo calls, and Kili doesn’t know if it has been hours or days since the last time Bilbo visited. Kili thinks only briefly of pulling the blankets from his head; he’s too tired, though, doesn’t care to hear about Bilbo’s search for a way out or to split the shares of food Dwalin has undoubtedly snuck to Bilbo. He doesn’t care, doesn’t want to care, so he closes his eyes again and holds onto his blankets as tightly as he can.

“Kili,” Bilbo whispers, “Dwalin sent you some food.”

Bilbo is stubborn, Kili will give him that. When Kili says nothing, Bilbo asks, in a grouchy sounding voice, “Are you actually asleep, Kili, or are you just sulking?”

It stings Kili’s pride, that Bilbo would think he’s so childish--and feels worse that Kili _is_ acting so childish. If Thorin was here--but he’s not, so Kili only pulls down the blankets enough so he can say, “I’m not hungry, Bilbo. Just eat the food and go away.”

Bilbo huffs loudly enough that Kili can hear him, then says, “Fine, very well. It’ll be payment for all my services to you. Your brother’s messages are, frankly, becoming ridiculous. I think he just wants to see how much I can remember.” And with that, Bilbo sets off on a long, rambling spiel about the Blue Mountains and wolves, “And do you remember the tree you climbed when you were little, that’s what he said. Something about falling out and breaking your arm. But then he said that he still hasn’t told Thorin, so you shouldn’t, either. And that’s all I can remember.”

Kili sighs and, because Bilbo is clearly expecting some sort of reply, says, “I never know what he’s trying to tell me. Are you sure that’s what he said?”

“He’s lonely,” Bilbo replies. “I don’t think he’s trying to tell you anything. I think he’s lonely. Everyone is--I am, and I’m the only one who can talk to anyone at all.”

The thought of Fili being lonely, or any of the others--Kili isn’t sure if it makes him feel better or worse. He licks his lips, then bites at a piece of loose skin on his upper lip. When it tears, it hurts, and he can taste blood in his mouth.

“I’m lonely,” he says, and then he presses his tongue against his lip, where it stings and tastes like copper and iron. He can hear Bilbo tapping at the bars, like Bilbo always does, to say that he’s still there. 

“I know,” Bilbo’s voice says softly, and Kili wants to pull the blankets back over his head. He doesn’t, though--he fists his hands in the blankets, and he says,

“It’s been a horrible month.”

Bilbo’s laugh is short and loud, and Kili holds his breath, listening for the footsteps of any elves. When there’s no sound of the guards, Bilbo’s voice says, more softly than before, “It has, hasn’t it? Nothing’s gone quite to plan.”

“No,” Kili agrees, and then he says, “I wish I hadn't come. It hasn’t--none of it has been worth it. What was the point, a mountain we’ve never even--we’ve never even seen it, and now we’ve lost Thorin, and we’re stuck with the bloody elves, and--” 

He shoves his face against the straw, pulling his blanket up over his head so he won’t say anymore--so he can pretend he has said nothing at all. He’s furious and sick with himself, tired and angry and lonely; he wishes he’d never left the Blue Mountains, and he wishes Thorin was still with him, and he wishes that he could see anyone at all. He wishes he’d never opened his mouth, because he feels hurt and tired and ashamed, and like he could cry.

“Kili,” Bilbo says, but that’s all Bilbo says. Kili can hear Bilbo tapping at the bars for a while longer, and then Bilbo says, “I’ll come back, Kili, I promise.”

And he does. Time after time, and Kili doesn’t let himself say anything to Bilbo, because Kili is afraid of what he’ll say. He’s afraid that he’ll admit how scared he is, how much he hates everyone, how much he hates _Thorin_ ; he’s afraid he’ll tell Bilbo how confused he is, and how he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, how he’s all twisted up inside, and how he feels like he’ll shatter at one good blow.

“Fili says hello,” Bilbo says, time and again; “Dori’s been telling me stories,” Bilbo says, and, “Balin seems to know everything, doesn’t he?” Bilbo talks on and on, always talking about everyone else, and Kili wonders what Bilbo says about him.

And then, one day, Bilbo says in a breathless voice, “Kili--Kili, I’ve found him. I’ve found Thorin.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for domestic violence in this chapter.

Kili spends the first two days in Laketown sleeping and eating. The third day finds him sitting on a step near the top of the staircase in the house the Company has been given. There are windows in the stairway, some feet above, and southern sunlight is pouring in through the window, warming the staircase. It has been a long time since Kili has felt direct sunlight, and Kili intends to soak up as much sunlight as he can, while staying within the house.

“You’ll get stepped on,” Dori scolds him at one point, and Bombur nearly knocks Kili down the stairs, but it is all worth it. Fili sits with Kili for a while, and so do Ori and Bifur. Bofur stops on his way downstairs to see Bilbo, and says, 

“You’ve found the best spot.”

“I have,” Kili says, and Bofur pats him on the shoulder before leaving. 

When Dwalin comes, he sits on a step behind Kili with a low groan and cracking knees. “It’s a good spot,” Dwalin says, and when Kili hums in agreement, Dwalin says, “I thought you’d be out exploring.”

“Thorin,” Kili says, “still wants everyone to stay in the house.” Dwalin’s silence feels expectant, and so Kili relents and admits, “Your brother’s still watching the door, and Thorin promised that if we were patient, Fili and I could go with him when he goes to speak with the town leaders.”

“That will be a sight.” Dwalin sounds as though he’s about to laugh. “All the royal family, descending upon the leaders of a poor town of Men.”

Kili snorts, then says, feeling bitter, “We’ll still be the beggars at the door. No food, no weapons--we have nothing.”

Dwalin pats Kili’s shoulder at that, and when Kili sighs, Dwalin says, “I forget how young you are. I was born on the road, when we had nothing. This isn’t so bad. We’re closer than we ever have been before.”

Kili mulls Dwalin’s words over for a few minutes. He thinks he knew that Dwalin was born on the road--he’s sure he’s heard someone mention it--but he’s never thought about what it meant before. It’s odd, to realize that only a handful of their Company have ever seen Erebor; it’s odd to think that, for once, Dwalin and Kili are on equal footing.

“You’ve never seen it,” he says. “Erebor, or Dale, or any of this.”

Dwalin says, “No.”

“Are you excited?” Kili asks. He is excited--at least, he thinks he’s excited. Even this far, Erebor still feels abstract to him, just another piece of their adventure. He knows that this is something that Thorin and Dis have been whispering about for decades, and he’s excited for them--but sometimes it feels as though his excitement and love for Erebor are only two more things he stands to inherit from his mother and his uncle.

“I suppose,” Dwalin says slowly, and when Dwalin grips Kili’s shoulders, pressing his thumbs into Kili’s neck, Kili blinks. “Balin is,” Dwalin goes on, “and I haven’t seen Thorin so focused in years. This will be the saving of our people.”

“Will it?” Kili asks, more softly. Dwalin is digging his thumbs into Kili’s neck--he must mean to relax Kili, but it only serves to make Kili more nervous, tension beginning to thrum through his body. 

“It will,” Dwalin says, and he sounds so sure, as sure as Thorin does, when Thorin talks about the power and wealth their family will regain. “Everything will be better, once we have Erebor again. Safety, strength--”

“Wealth,” Kili offers, and Dwalin says,

“Political autonomy.”

Kili breathes, then licks his lips slowly. Dwalin’s thumbs have stopped moving, and now his hands are cupping Kili’s neck, pressure bearing down on Kili’s collarbones.

“For me,” Kili asks, always another question, another beat of unsurety, “or for our people?”

“Both.” Dwalin pushes Kili’s hair to the side, then kisses the nape of Kili’s neck, just above the collar of Kili’s shirt. Dwalin’s lips feel warm and dry, and his beard prickles at Kili’s skin. Dwalin’s hands are still on Kili’s neck, like Dwalin is bracketing the kiss, and Dwalin tightens his hands, squeezing Kili’s neck and collarbones before he’s pulling away.

“Try not to get stepped on,” Dwalin says as he stands up, with another groan and cracking of knees. He claps Kili heavily on the shoulder, and Kili nods, stutters,

“Yeah, I won’t--”

He lingers there on the stairs after Dwalin leaves; picks at the wooden steps until he’s managed to jam a splinter into his thumb. When he finally leaves the step, it is with a sore thumb and a new, hopeful curiosity for Erebor. He visits the kitchen downstairs long enough to eat as much as he can, and then he heads back upstairs, intent on napping for as much of the afternoon as Fili will let him.

He runs into Thorin in the upstairs hallway. Thorin is standing in the center of the hallway, looking up towards the window over the stairway. Thorin’s face looks pensive and stern, and Kili thinks of going back downstairs; before he can decide, though, Thorin is lowering his eyes to look at Kili.

“Kili,” Thorin says, and he takes two long steps forward and claps Kili’s arm. His face doesn’t lose any of its sternness, but his grip is loose and his voice is light when he says, “Come along.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Thorin continues as soon as he’s led Kili into the bedroom Kili and Fili have been sharing. 

“About what?” Kili asks. Trepidation is settling in his ribcage, as though his whole chest is beginning to shiver. 

The stern look on Thorin’s face begins to look more severe, and Thorin moves his mouth in an exaggerated grimace before he says, “I saw you on the stairs today, with Dwalin.”

“I spoke with everyone,” Kili tries, more than a little hopelessly; his hopelessness is warranted, because Thorin says,

“Not everyone kissed your neck.”

Kili can _feel_ the back of his neck begin to burn. He wants to hide his face, and he has to clench his hands into fists to keep himself from covering his face. 

“I’m not angry,” Thorin says--it is certainly a lie, and even if it isn’t, Kili can’t look at Thorin’s face. The thought of Thorin looking disappointed, or angry--Kili stares down at his hands instead, at the way his knuckles are blanched and the angry red mark where his thumb was stuck with the sliver.

“Kili,” Thorin says, like he’s prompting Kili, and Kili mutters,

“Yes, Thorin.”

“He’s treating you as though he has a suit,” Thorin goes on. Kili stares resolutely at his thumb, where he can see a dark pinprick of blood. “Kili?” Thorin prompts again.

Kili can’t look up from his thumb. He scratches where his skin is still red and sore, and before Thorin can become annoyed, Kili says, “He does, though. He always has.” Kili lifts his eyes high enough to see collar of Thorin’s shirt, then he looks back at his thumb, saying, “You gave it to him.” 

Thorin makes a sound that is closer to a growl than a sigh, and Kili shifts his weight back onto his heels, letting his shoulders slump.

When Thorin talks, his words are short and precise. Kili can nearly feel Thorin’s frustration, and a part of Kili wants to do nothing more than to prod at it, to make Thorin well and truly angry--but the other part of Kili wants to apologize until Thorin’s smiling at him again.

“You know that things are complicated. Dwalin’s conduct reflects on you. If it’s thought that he has too great an influence over you, or that you are partial to him--”

“I know,” Kili interrupts. When he looks up, Thorin is looking at him expectantly, so Kili says again, “I know, Thorin.”

“I don’t think you do.” Thorin’s voice is sounding tighter, his words more precise. “If anyone had seen Dwalin touching you, they could have ruined you. _Politics_ ,” he says sharply, “is rumor and gossip, and if there is a thread of truth--if it is ever _thought_ there is a thread of truth--they will turn on you.”

“Who?” Kili asks, and Thorin says,

“Everyone.”

“Everyone,” Kili repeats, feeling a little sick at the thought. “It doesn’t matter, though. I won’t be king, that’s Fili--”

“You’re both my heirs,” Thorin interrupts. “You’re a child of Durin, and you’ll be a leader of our people.” 

This is rote, Kili knows it by heart, but the next thing Thorin says is new: “You cannot trust anyone. Any weakness, real or perceived, will be used against you. Mistakes are never forgiven, nor forgotten. _Kili_ ,” Thorin says in his sharp, tense voice, “you’ll be torn apart for another’s mistakes.”

The idea is ugly, and it is lonely. Kili opens his mouth, thinking of asking Thorin if Thorin at least trusts their Company--then he closes his mouth, because he knows the answer to that. He knows that Thorin trusts only in divisions: Thorin trusts Balin for his wisdom, and Dwalin for his strength, and Gloin for his wealth. Kili had never thought of it, but he thinks of it now, of the way Thorin clasps his hands behind his back, the way Thorin keeps secrets and the way that, while Thorin may talk a great deal, it is mostly a great deal of nothing.

“You don’t trust anyone,” Kili says, rather than asks. He watches the way Thorin frowns at some middle distance.

“I trust,” Thorin says after a moment, “some with my life, but I trust no one with our kingdom. Kili,” he says, and his voice is full of brittle energy, the excitement Thorin always seems to have when he talks with Dis late at night, about Erebor and Khazad-dum and the Iron Hills, “you must maintain distinctions between yourself and your position. You will always feel things--you’re a dwarf--but you must not act on your feelings.”

“Ever?” Kili begins to ask, but he is unable to finish the word. It doesn’t matter, Thorin seems to understand regardless.

“Friendships, marriages,” Thorin says, “everything must be of the greatest benefit to your position.”

“To our people,” Kili corrects, and Thorin agrees,

“To our people.”

“And what,” Kili asks, “about the things you want, the ones that won’t be a benefit?”

Thorin smiles now, and it is just a smile--not bitter, or strained, or even happy; it’s just a smile. “Then you want for something,” he says, “while knowing that you’ll never have it. You’ll learn to find comfort in wanting. We always do: your mother, your grandfather--even me.”

“Even you,” Kili repeats. He wonders what things Thorin has wanted, that he’s never been able to have. He wonders what things he himself will want, for all the centuries of his life, the things he’ll want and that he will never be able to have. He asks, “What if you try to take what you want?”

Thorin begins to frown again. “What,” Thorin asks, “did you try to take?” 

And Kili says, “I didn’t mean to.”

“What have you done?” Thorin asks, and then he asks again, more loudly, “What have you done?” Kili swallows, trying to look away, and Thorin grabs Kili’s shoulder, turning Kili back to face him. “Don’t try to play me for a fool, Kili. Tell me what you’ve done.”

“I offered Dwalin my bed,” Kili says, and his voice barely comes out as a whisper. When Thorin tightens his grip on Kili’s shoulders, Kili clears his throat and says louder, “I offered him my bed.”

“When?” Thorin hisses, and Kili says, feeling utterly miserable,

“In Rivendell.”

Thorin lets go of Kili’s shoulders, taking a step back. Kili watches as Thorin covers his face, pressing his hands against his eyes. Kili can’t make out any of Thorin’s face, so he looks instead at Thorin’s hands. Thorin’s fingertips have gone white around his nails, and Kili can see the raised lines of Thorin’s veins.

“Did you sleep with him?” Thorin’s hands are still covered his face. Kili watches as Thorin drags his hands down, cupping them over his mouth briefly before he pulls his hands away entirely. “Kili?”

And Kili--Kili doesn’t know. He’d known the lines months ago, the lines that he couldn’t cross, but now he’s unsure. He doesn’t know where, exactly, the lines are; he doesn’t know what constitutes as sex anymore, or what fucking is; he doesn’t know what is too much, and what is too little. 

“I don’t know,” Kili says, feeling helpless. He watches as Thorin wipes his face again.

“You don’t know,” Thorin repeats in a furious voice. “How can you not know?”

It feels like there’s no answer to give--it feels like there’s no air in his _lungs_. Kili stutters, “We didn’t-- There were things that we didn’t--”

“Did he touch you?” Thorin asks over Kili’s voice. When Kili nods (he can’t not, not when Thorin is looking at Kili like he already knows), Thorin curses, and says, “He had no right.”

“I gave it to him,” Kili says, and it is the wrong thing to say--it is certainly the wrong thing to say, because Thorin is rounding on Kili, nearly bristling in his rage, and Kili is suddenly, horribly afraid of him.

“You?” Thorin spits, and he’s grabbing Kili’s arm, yanking it up tightly. “What right do you have to give away anything? You will wait as long as I tell you, and you will marry who I tell you.”

“I didn’t,” Kili tries to say, but he’s not sure what he didn’t mean to do (or, maybe, what he didn’t mean to want).

“I,” Thorin interrupts, talking over Kili, always talking over Kili, over Kili’s voice and over Kili’s head and over Kili’s life, “am your _king_.”

And he is, Kili knows that. Kili knows that, has had that lesson engraved into his mind; but in his bones, there’s a visceral love for his uncle, something deeper and more painful and infinitely more unfair. Thorin’s hand is twisting Kili’s arm tighter and Kili blurts out, “You’re my _uncle_ \--”

Thorin lets go of Kili’s arm like it’s an ember, then lifts his hand. A crack reverberates in Kili’s head, like the sound of his skull snapping in two, and he feels his entire body jar to the side. Dark spots and sparks of light bloom across his eyesight, and he can feel his mouth move as he gasps for breath. There is something wet in his mouth, thick and sticky, and he thinks, _Blood._ Then he thinks, _Thorin struck me._

He can’t turn to look back at Thorin, or even stand up; when he looks down at his hands, pressed flat against the floorboards, he realizes that he’s half-lying on the floor, his legs twisted underneath him like he fell. Shock--it has to be shock, because Fili’s hit Kili far worse than this before, and Kili has never fallen like this. Just shock, because he wasn’t expecting--Thorin has never hit him before, has never even lifted his hand to threaten it; for as brutal as Thorin’s words have been, Thorin’s always been so gentle with Kili, like Kili’s body is something valuable.

He tries to blink the spots away from his eyes, and when he blinks, his jaw flexes, and pain stretches through his jaw and cheek. 

Kili can hear ugly, rasping breathing, and he thinks it is him until he realizes that he’s hardly breathing at all. It must be Thorin, then, who is gasping for breath. Kili curls his hands against the floorboards, staring at them, and tries not to flinch when he hears Thorin take a step closer. Thorin makes a wordless sound, like an angry animal, and Kili listens to the heavy footsteps as Thorin rushes away. The door, when it slams, makes Kili’s head ring.

He sits there on the floor, crumpled and bloody, and listens to dwarves shout and curse in Khuzdul. When pain starts streaking through his legs, he shifts, pulling his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins. He lies his head against his legs and listens to the shouting.

He can’t make out many of the words, with the shut door muffling the shouting, but what he can hear makes him want to crawl away, like a dog beaten and left to die.

The shouting crescendos, then there is another series of slamming doors. The door to Kili’s room opens and Kili flinches, turning his head so he can bury his face into his legs. With the door open, he can hear Thorin’s shouting much more clearly--words like _trust_ and _child_ and _fuck_. Humiliation is pouring through Kili’s body, because this is not the way things were supposed to be.

“You idiot,” Fili whispers, and Kili turns his head just enough to see Fili standing in the doorway. Fili leans out of the doorway, looking down the hallway, then steps inside the room, closing the door. The closed door muffles Thorin’s voice again, but no matter--Kili has already learned what Thorin thinks of him.

“What were you thinking?” Fili asks, still in that sharp whisper, and Kili thinks it’s all rather stupid. Fili could yell at the top of his lungs, and Thorin wouldn’t hear a word.

“I wasn’t thinking,” he says, and he can’t help but wince as he speaks; each time he moves his jaw, it feels like Thorin is striking him all over again. “I never think, do I.”

Fili makes an angry sound, then says, “He’s struck you.”

“He did,” Kili says. When Fili sits down on the floor, right in front of Kili, Kili lets go of his legs, shifting so he’s sitting tailor style, his knees touching Fili’s knees. “I deserved it.”

“You did,” Fili agrees, but his voice is softer now, more gentle, like he always is when Kili’s been punished for one of his many mistakes. Fili reaches out slowly, then touches Kili’s cheek. It stings and Kili hisses, trying to tilt his head farther away. It makes Fili frown.

“His ring caught you,” Fili says. He presses his thumb against the most tender part of Kili’s cheek, then pulls it away, showing his thumb to Kili. There’s blood on his thumb, still bright and wet, and now that Kili knows that he’s bleeding, he can feel the wet trickle of blood on his face.

When Fili presses at another spot on Kili’s cheek, Kili hisses louder, muttering, “Stop, that hurts.”

Fili’s looking at Kili’s mouth now, his face all concerned, and he asks, “You’ve got blood on your mouth. Did any of your teeth break?”

It is a good question. Kili frowns and runs his tongue over his teeth slowly, feeling for jagged bits. There is a cut on the inside of his cheek, and the blood is salty and thick on his tongue.

“No,” he says, “just a cut, and a loose tooth.”

“Well don’t swallow the blood, you’ll make yourself sick.” Fili touches Kili’s cheek once again, then gets up, going to the bedside table. Kili busies himself with worrying over his loose tooth, prodding it with his tongue and testing how loose it is. He’s gingerly poking at the tooth with his finger when Fili shoves a bowl under his nose, saying, “Spit.”

Kili can’t actually spit--his mouth won’t cooperate with him enough--so he takes the bowl and leans over it, opening his mouth and trying to push the blood and spit out with his tongue. It’s pitiful, even he thinks it is, and he can see the way Fili is looking at him, sympathetic and horrified.

“It’s not that bad,” he grumbles when he’s gotten as much blood out as he can; he can feel his loose tooth still bleeding, though, however sluggishly.

“Maybe,” Fili says uncertainly. Fili settles down in front of Kili again as Kili sets the bowl aside, then takes Kili’s face in his hand, pressing a damp cloth against Kili’s cheek. The cloth stings against the cut, but it feels wonderful against the rest of Kili’s cheek, cooling the heat of Kili’s hot skin.

“It will bruise,” Fili murmurs, “and the cut might scar. It looks deep.”

“It’s not so bad,” Kili says again, and he lets himself lean his face against Fili’s hand, just a little bit. They can still hear shouting from down the hall. Fili’s face goes a bit pale as the words get crueler and cruder, and Kili thinks that, yes, things must hurt Fili more than they hurt him.

“He doesn’t mean any of it,” Fili says in a low voice, dabbing the damp cloth against Kili’s cheek gently. He’s much better at this than Kili ever will be.

Kili makes a sound, in the back of his throat, then says slowly, because it hurts to speak, “Thorin always means what he says, you know that.”

“He doesn’t,” Fili repeats. “Not about you--he wouldn’t mean anything like that. I might be his heir,” Fili says, “but you’re his favorite.”

Just the words make Kili feel sicker. He swallows down the taste of blood that is still in his mouth and feels like he’s going to vomit. “I’m not,” he says, then: “And that would just make things worse. He won’t forgive me for this.”

“He will.” Fili sounds so desperately sure about it. “He’ll forgive you, it will just take some time. Let him forget his anger.”

Time, time, everything seems to take time, and Kili feels like they’re doing nothing but running out of time. They’re so close to Erebor, and everything that was supposed to be coming together is instead falling apart.

“Time,” Kili says, feeling utterly miserable, and Fili says,

“Just be patient.”

Fili pulls the cloth away from Kili’s face, inspecting the cloth, then Kili’s face. Fili’s fingertips feel cool and damp, and Kili obediently turns his face when Fili taps at Kili’s chin. Fili’s still looking concerned, and so Kili lifts his eyebrows, says, “You’ve given me worse.”

“Maybe.” Fili says it slowly, grudgingly, and Kili feels a crushing sort of exhaustion. He lets himself lean forward into Fili’s space, until Fili sighs and tilts his head so Kili can rest his forehead against Fili’s shoulder.

The fabric of Fili’s shirt is soft and smooth, nicer than anything from the journey so far. Kili absently rubs his forehead against it for a moment; his skin feels tender and hot, pain still spiking through his face, and so the softness of the shirt feels like tingling nerves against Kili’s skin.

“You think he’ll forgive me,” Kili says--or maybe asks. He’s not sure. He wants answers, he wants things to be quantified; he wants to know how much, and how soon. He wants something he can understand, written out like a contract, or plotted out through numbers. He wants Thorin’s forgiveness. (He wants too much--he always wants too much, always tries to take more than his fair share. Dis always said that his eyes were bigger than his stomach, that he never seemed to learn when enough was enough.)

“He will,” Fili says, and, “Turn your head, I don’t want blood on my shirt.” Fili’s hand is still cool and damp, and when Fili presses the damp cloth back to Kili’s cheek, it feels even cooler by comparison. 

Kili is beginning to think that perhaps things won’t be so bad; that maybe this will all blow over, and Kili and Fili can just stay hidden in their room until things are taken care of. Maybe that’s why the fragile remnants of peace break.

“Fili!” Thorin shouts from down the hallway. Kili pulls back so that he can look toward to door, and he sees Fili look toward it, too. Fili looks torn, his hands still cupping Kili’s face but his body practically vibrating with tension to get up and leave. 

“Fili!” Thorin shouts again, but this time it sounds more like a roar. Kili grabs Fili’s hands, pulls them away from his face.

“Go on,” Kili says. “Someone should stay on his good side.”

Fili hesitates, then says, “Try not to get blood everywhere,” before he leaves the room in a rush.

Kili sits on the floor for a few minutes more, then he makes himself get up. He takes the bowl of water back to the bedside table, and then he clambers up onto the bed. He sits there on the bed, pressing the cloth against his cheek, then pulling the cloth away to look at the fresh blood. He presses the cloth against his cheek again, hissing, then gingerly rotates his jaw, wincing at the spasms of pain.

He’s still sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet dangling, when Fili comes back into the room, looking flushed and upset. Kili feels his body tense and he asks, “What did he say?”

“Nothing.” Fili lies horribly, his eyes skittering around the room like there is nowhere he can stand to look. When Kili snorts disbelievingly, Fili relents a little, saying, “You don’t need to hear it.”

“It was that bad, then?” Kili asks as he looks down at his feet, dangling so far above the floor; he sneaks a look at Fili’s face, which is looking even more upset. That answers Kili’s question well enough. “That bad, then,” he says, and he looks back down to his feet again.

He can hear Fili moving about the room, pacing in strange patterns. Fili’s steps quicken, then slow, and then stop.

“Why,” Fili asks, and his voice is upset and angry and accusing; it feels like it’s burning a hole through Kili’s stomach, “were you so _stupid_?”

Kili’s not sure what to say, and he sneaks a look at Fili’s face to try and see what would be best to say. The sight of Fili, though, stops Kili’s tongue: Fili is standing between the door and the bed, and he’s holding all the clothes that he’s been lent by the town.

“What are you doing?” Kili asks, his mouth going dry. 

“It’s your fault,” Fili snaps. “Thorin’s said we’re to switch rooms--I’ll be staying with him, and Dwalin will be coming in here.”

“Why--”

“He’s making a point, Kili,” Fili says, as though Kili is too much a fool to follow along. 

“He’s punishing me,” Kili tries to say, and Fili interrupts, saying louder, 

“He’s saving face.” Fili’s face twists, like he’s too angry to even frown properly. “He’s saving what’s left of your reputation.”

Kili’s heart is beating too fast and he can feel his palms sweating. “I didn’t sleep with him, I never touched him,” he says, stumbling over the words.

“That doesn’t matter!” Fili shouts, and he’s gripping his clothes tightly, strangling them as though he wants to strangle Kili instead. “All that matters is what people think! You’ve been sneaking around for months and he’s been--he’s been touching you, in front of everyone, and you’ve been letting him. He’s been _flaunting_ you, like Thorin already gave you to him. Everyone will think he’s been in your bed for weeks.” Kili opens his mouth and Fili snaps, “No, Kili. It doesn’t matter if you _fucked_ him. It just matters who _thinks_ you fucked him.”  
    
Fili’s face abruptly goes soft, and Kili thinks that his own expression must look terrible indeed, if it makes Fili’s anger drain away that quickly. 

“Kili,” Fili says, so much more gently. It only seems to make everything worse. “Thorin will do what he can.” Fili smiles then, but it looks sick. “You’ve gotten your way, at least.”

“It wasn’t--this isn’t what I wanted,” Kili says, and he wants to grab Fili, wants to dig his nails into Fili’s hands and hold on until Fili understands--but he doesn’t think Fili would listen, and he doesn’t think Fili would understand. (And he is afraid that Fili will pull away, or push Kili away, or maybe even strike Kili, just like Thorin did.) “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Fili is already looking away from him, saying in a low voice, “I’ve got to go, Kili. Just--don’t make Thorin any angrier.”

“How could I?” Kili asks; he kicks his heel against the side of the bed, then draws his leg up onto the mattress. “It was a betrayal, Fili. What could I do, that would be worse than that?”

“I’m sure you’d find something,” Fili says dryly. It stings Kili, and he scowls at Fili until Fili says, “He’ll forgive you. He’s still protecting you, as best as he can. Kili,” he says, “Thorin loves you. He’ll forgive you, and he’ll fix everything. I promise.”

There is a near-fanatical certainty in Fili’s face and in Fili’s voice. Kili closes his eyes and nods, because he has a near-fanatical certainty, too, and it is not in Thorin’s love and patience. Kili’s always pushing too hard and too far, and this--this has been a step past betrayal, and a step into treason.

“He’s my king,” Kili says, to himself and to Fili and to the quietness of the room. He feels more exhausted every moment, like he’s being crushed beneath the weight of a mountain. He wants to lie down and sleep for a year--or perhaps just to lie down, and never bother with getting up again. When Fili pats Kili’s foot, Kili slowly opens his eyes.

“He’ll forgive you,” Fili says. “You’re still his kin.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for dubious consent in this chapter.

“Go to sleep,” Dwalin says; it’s the fourth thing he’s said to Kili. (The first had been, _He hit you, then?_ and the second had been, _Did he break your jaw?_ and the third was, _Move your hand, let me see._ )

“I’m not tired,” Kili says. It’s the second thing he’s said. (Before, he’d said, _It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t hurt._ ) His jaw is aching, though, and his head feels dizzy. Kili’s not sure if it’s from being struck or from being left in a room alone with Dwalin. 

Dwalin grunts, but he doesn’t move from where he’s sitting on the far side of the bed. The room falls back into an awkward silence, and Kili finds himself picking at his thumbnail, then pressing on the sore spot where the splinter broke the skin. It’s not long before the silence has become too much for Kili. He yanks off his boots and drops them off the side of the bed, then he hesitates, because he’s unsure if he should undress-- He yanks at the ties of his shirt, then smooths it down over his belly. He pulls back the bedclothes, then crawls beneath, still dressed in his shirt and trousers.

Lying in the bed, he thinks that he won’t be able to sleep. The bedclothes feel too rough against his skin, and when he tugs irritably at a blanket, the blanket doesn’t move--Dwalin’s weight on the other side of the bed has the blanket pinned down. Kili feels as though he is restless energy bound in dwarvish form, and he has to roll onto his stomach and shove his hands beneath his belly to keep from picking at the bedclothes or the seams of the pillow. 

The closed-in silence of the room, though, is as heavy as anything. Kili can hear Dwalin’s steady, raspy breathing, and the far-off sounds of people going about their lives outside the window. The bed warms beneath Kili’s body, and when Kili finds himself drowsing, it is with a little surprise. Dwalin is still on the far side of the bed, and Kili’s back is still to him; Kili rounds his shoulders up high, then scoots further down into the bed, so he can cover his face with the blankets. Then, he lets himself sleep.

When he wakes, it is dark in the room. He’s slept away the afternoon, then. The whole house seems quiet, and Kili would guess that it is either very late at night, or very early in the morning, but he thinks it’s unlikely there will be any noise in the house tonight, even if it is still early at night. 

He’s hot now, his body overheated from the bedclothes and his own heavy shirt and trousers. He pushes the covers back impatiently, then squirms until his legs are free. He’s undoing the laces of his trousers when he realizes that Dwalin is no longer snoring.

“Did I wake you?” Kili asks, and Dwalin makes a noncommittal grunt. Kili hesitates, then yanks the laces of his trousers tight again, tying the laces into a knot. He’s sitting up, trying to figure out the ties of his shirt, when he feels the bed shift. He can barely pick out Dwalin’s shape in the dark room: a figure moving on the other side of the bed, then the sound of him climbing slowly and heavily out of the bed; the sound of Dwalin shuffling across the room.

“A light,” Dwalin mutters, and it is only a few moments before Kili hears the sound of flint and steel. The candle, when it lights, struggles for a moment before it begins to flicker steadily. It’s not much light--much of the room is still in shadow--but it is more than enough to throw both Dwalin and Kili into light. 

Kili looks back down to the laces of his shirt. He plucks at the knot, then lets it go; he smooths the shirt over his belly again, then catches the hem in his fingers, rubbing his thumb along the line of stitches.

“You won’t go back to sleep?” Kili asks.

Dwalin throws himself onto the bed before he answers, “Too awake now.” He’s only in his small clothes, and when he stretches out atop the bedclothes, Kili can see the heavy lines of Dwalin’s bones and muscles.

A rigidity is climbing up Kili’s spine and Kili finds himself looking towards the bedroom door.

“Now what?” Kili asks. He doesn’t want to ask it--doesn’t want to deal with any of this--but the door seems very far away. Kili has never been afraid of darkness, and he’s not now--but there is uncertainty lurking in the air of the room and stalking down the length of the hall, and Kili is frightened of that. 

“Anything you want.” Dwalin moves, making the mattress shift under his weight, and says, “Go back to sleep, if you wish.”

Kili lies himself down atop the covers, half an arm’s width of space between his body and Dwalin’s. He thinks briefly of reaching across the space to touch Dwalin’s hand, or even Dwalin’s face. He banishes the thought nearly as quickly as he has it, but Dwalin must have noticed Kili moving his hand, because Dwalin heaves himself upwards, turning so he can lean over Kili.

“It’s not like you,” Dwalin says, “to be so hesitant.”

“You’re my elder,” Kili says back, like that is an answer, and Dwalin replies,

“And you’re my better.” Dwalin’s face is broad and blank, and Kili has never looked at it so closely before. When Dwalin blinks, he does so slowly. “I have no place to make demands on you.”

“Don’t you?” Kili looks away from Dwalin’s face, focuses his eyes instead on the darkness past Dwalin’s shoulder, where the candlelight cannot reach. “You have before,” Kili says, and his chest feels empty, like there is a gap beneath his ribs, like too much weight on his body will snap him in half.

Dwalin touches Kili’s face, his fingertips wide and blunt, and he asks, “Did I hurt you, Kili?”

And Kili knows his voice will shake if he speaks, that his words will crack and break, and so he shakes his head instead, still looking at the darkness over Dwalin’s shoulder. 

“I have always--” Dwalin doesn’t finish his sentence; he is frowning at Kili, his face dark and his eyebrows furled. What Kili feels is like a visceral need to fix or to sooth--like the gut-deep desire to assuage Thorin’s disappointment or to break Fili’s frustration. Kili hesitates, then runs his hands once, twice along Dwalin’s shoulders, before pulling his hands away again.

There is enough light in the room that Kili can see the change in Dwalin’s face: the draining of the frustration or anger, the unfurling of new thoughtfulness. It’s hard not to notice the way Dwalin’s eyes flick downwards, first as far as Kili’s mouth, then further--to Kili’s neck, and then to Kili’s body.

“No one’s touched you.” It’s a statement, not a question; nor is it a question when Dwalin says, “You’ve never had another’s mouth.”

It’s a statement, not a question, so Kili doesn’t answer. He breathes deeply through his mouth, as though if he tries hard enough he’ll be able to catch his breath, and he spreads his fingers wide on the sheets of the bed. His skin feels too tender by half, and the weave of the sheets against the skin of his hands makes his stomach twist slowly.

When Dwalin touches Kili’s hip, Kili spreads his fingers wider, until the joints of his fingers are aching. It feels as though Dwalin is petting Kili through the thinness of Kili’s trousers--Kili can feel the heavy strength of Dwalin’s thumb, pressing and sliding where Kili feels bony and thin and fragile. It reminds Kili of how one soothes a pony, and Kili thinks that, if he felt less constrained, he might laugh at it. (A mad laugh, maybe--the sort that Kili can never stop for hours on end, the sort that always makes Dis’s face go pale and pinched, that makes Fili scowl and leave the room.)

Dwalin tugs at the waist of Kili’s trousers, then, and Kili feels something turn over cold and small in his stomach. It is bravado that makes him try to help Dwalin undo the laces of his trousers, bravado that has him fumbling at his own laces, then arching his back awkwardly, lifting his hips so Dwalin can pull free Kili’s trousers.

He forces himself to look down towards Dwalin. Dwalin’s head is ducked low, close enough that Kili can feel the hotness of Dwalin’s breath on his thigh. Kili looks away before Dwalin touches him, and when Dwalin does--Kili blinks hard, looking up at the dark ceiling.

He’s unsure of what he should do with his hands. He touches the bedsheets first, rubbing his fingertips over the weave. It isn’t enough--he feels restless, like he wants to move a thousand directions at once. He spreads his left hand over his own belly and, when Dwalin twists his hand on Kili’s sex, Kili digs his nails into his skin. The sharp pain digs into him like hooks of pleasure, twisting somewhere deep behind his belly, near his spine.

When Dwalin puts his mouth over Kili’s sex, taking Kili into his mouth, Kili feels as though his breath has been punched out of him, as though something has latched into his belly, ready to tug him open. 

_Wet_ , he thinks, _and hot_ \--and then he thinks, _How stupid_ , because of course it is wet and hot--it is Dwalin’s mouth. 

Kili’s skin feels like it is beginning to burn, like he is being blistered in a fire. He tries to breathe deeply, but it only makes his head swim all the worse, and it is a strange, breathless fear that has him reaching down to grasp at Dwalin, one of Kili’s hands fisting in Dwalin’s hair while the other is gripping Dwalin’s shoulder, Kili’s fingertips pressing into Dwalin’s muscles. 

Unsurety, maybe--always unsurety, tucked back behind Kili’s bravado. It feels as though Kili is balanced on a precipice, about to tumble into something momentous. (Maybe it is stupid, how he wants to take everything back, how he wants to be six months back, when he had wanted nothing more than for Dwalin to kiss him. Stupid, maybe, how he could feel so sick over finally getting what he’s wanted for so long.)

(He is a stupid, foolish child.)

And maybe he loses himself. He comes back to himself in starts: realizing he’s not breathing when he gasps for breath, or realizing that his eyes are closed when he opens them again. Maybe he’s losing pieces of himself when he digs his fingers into Dwalin, into Dwalin’s hair and Dwalin’s skin, like if he can hold on tight enough--like he can keep ahold of himself--

But there is unsurety and fear, tucked back there behind Kili’s bravado.

“Please,” Kili begs, because he wants to be done--he wants Dwalin to stop touching him; he wants to be able to get off this bed and leave, to walk out this room and walk out this house and walk out this town. Maybe, perhaps, to walk out into the water, to sink down to the bottom of the lake, until his whole body is frozen, until his numbness has a reason to it.

Dwalin makes a noise--a hum, perhaps--and his whole mouth vibrates around Kili’s sex. That’s when Kili comes, biting his lip and twisting his hands in Dwalin’s hair, unsure if he is trying to pull Dwalin closer or push Dwalin away. It feels like a pile of stones collapsing, more exhausting than pleasurable. 

He makes his fingers loosen, makes himself let go of Dwalin’s hair. When Dwalin lifts his head, his face looks flushed and his mouth wet; Kili blinks, then closes his eyes. When he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, he’s able to shut out the flickering candlelight.

“--was it?” Kili hears Dwalin ask, and Kili says,

“It was fine.” Then, too quickly: “Good--it was good.”

He can feel when Dwalin moves up the bed: Dwalin’s hands are on either side of Kili’s body, first on either side of Kili’s ribs, then on either side of his shoulders. Dwalin’s breath is hot and damp when it hits Kili’s bare skin, moving from low on Kili’s belly up to Kili’s neck. When Kili opens his eyes, he finds that Dwalin’s face is equal to his own.

“Was it?” Dwalin asks as soon as Kili meets his eyes. Kili feels his mouth grimace, so he reaches for Dwalin’s face, pulls Dwalin close to him.

“You don’t want to kiss my mouth, lad,” Dwalin says, and he turns his face away, keeping his mouth from Kili’s. Kili’s face feels even hotter when he thinks of what Dwalin means, but his stomach only feels cold.

“What,” he asks, “should I want, then?”

Dwalin doesn’t say anything, just huffs a breath. Touching Dwalin’s face begins to feel too close, too intimate, so Kili moves his hands, resting one on Dwalin’s shoulder, touching the other to Dwalin’s chest, where a scar curves down from Dwalin’s collarbone. Dwalin is staring at Kili, but Kili can’t look back for more than a moment, his eyes moving from looking at Dwalin’s eyes to Dwalin’s chin, to Dwalin’s neck and the darkness behind Dwalin’s head. (Dwalin’s eyes are so pale, nearly white in the faint candlelight, and Kili feels like the base of his skull is buzzing with the quietness.)

When Dwalin shifts restlessly against Kili, Kili feels his skin begin to grow hot again, down his neck and across his chest.

“You’re hard,” Kili blurts out. Dwalin’s next breath sounds like a huff, and his chest rises and falls underneath Kili’s hand.

“‘course I am,” Dwalin says in a gruff voice. 

“Then what about you?” Kili asks. He hates himself as soon as the words are out of his mouth, as soon as Dwalin’s lower jaw juts out in thought. He’s proud, though--so stupidly proud, so fucking proud, never able to admit when he’s done wrong--and so he grabs the waist of Dwalin’s trousers, tugs on it lightly. “What,” he asks again, and he is so stupidly proud, so fucking proud, that his voice doesn’t break, “about you?”

Dwalin touches Kili’s face then, his thumb against Kili’s lips and his fingers resting just below the cut that Thorin gave Kili. Dwalin is looking at Kili’s mouth and Kili’s stomach is twisting up tight, like Kili’s about to be sick.

“Lie down,” is what Dwalin says though, “and hold your thighs together.”

x

Kili doesn’t sleep for the rest of the morning. Dwalin does, rolling over so that he’s facing away from Kili, the blankets pulled up to his shoulder. He snores loudly, almost like he’s gasping for breath, and Kili finds himself breathing in time, counting in time, to Dwalin’s snores. Whenever Dwalin stops snoring, Kili feels his body begin to seize up in a blind panic, because perhaps this time Dwalin will wake up--

Dawn comes slowly, a thin and watery light that drips through the window, casting everything in wet-looking shadows. Kili watches the room as the sun comes up--the walls first purple, then blue; the wooden floor black, then gray. 

When Dwalin does wake up, Kili rolls so his back is to Dwalin. He watches the morning light slowly drip down the walls, and listens as Dwalin prepares for the day: the splash of water as Dwalin washes himself, and the rustle of clothing as Dwalin dresses. Dwalin pauses by the foot of the bed--Kili has counted the footsteps, the muscles of his back and shoulders tightening whenever the footsteps sound too close--and Dwalin asks,

“Kili?”

Kili rolls onto his belly, wrapping his arms around his pillow. 

“I’m tired,” he says, and his voice sounds muffled even to himself. When Dwalin grabs and squeezes Kili’s ankle, Kili doesn’t pull away, or say anything but, “I’ll come down later.”

He falls asleep not longer after Dwalin leaves. The bed cools quickly without the heat of Dwalin’s body, and Kili stretches out his arms and legs, searching out the cool patches, flipping his pillow so he can press his cheek against the cool side. His eyes feel hot and scratchy--exhaustion, he thinks, and he tucks his chin in against his pillow before he falls asleep.

x

It’s nearly a week before Thorin speaks to Kili again. The borrowed house seems smaller than before, and for all that Kili tries to avoid Thorin, it seems like they’re always in the same room, whether they’re eating or having fittings for clothing. Thorin’s silence feels like cold indifference, and it takes Kili days to notice that Thorin is acting as cold to everyone else as he is to Kili.

The Company itself is split. Nori and Ori never seem to be in the house, and Kili wishes that he could tag along with them, to wherever they’re going. Kili hasn’t seen Bifur or Bombur for days, and he only catches glimpses of Bofur. Dori and Gloin always seem to be arguing, but they fall silent whenever Kili walks into the room or around the corner. Balin and Dwalin are being frostily silent with each other, and Fili is beginning to look more strained by the day. The only ones who seem to be unaffected are Oin, who seldom looks up from the books he’s found, and Bilbo, who’s still laid up with a cold.

In all, it feels as though Kili has single-handedly destroyed the quest, and he can’t help but pity himself over it, prodding at the shame and hurt like poking at a loose tooth. It hurts like a new kind of heartbreak, and Kili spends most of the hours lying in his bed, the covers pulled over his head. He wishes, in a vague sort of way, that he’d never left the dungeons in Mirkwood--or even that he’d never left the Blue Mountains. He misses his mother, and he misses his home; he misses Thorin, too.

“We didn’t need a dragon,” he says once, when he’s sitting in the front room with only Gloin and Oin for company. Oin is bent over his books and Gloin is tallying up repayment sheets, and Kili is feeling utterly lonely. 

“Hmm?” Gloin hums.

“We didn’t need a dragon,” Kili says again, all hurt and self-pity and poking at his own heartaches. “I’ve done well enough myself, ruining everything.”

“It’s all politics,” Gloin says, and Kili glumly says,

“I know that.”

“Maybe.” Gloin says it very doubtingly. “You’ve stolen a great deal from Thorin--more, I think, than you know.”

“You married someone you love,” Kili argues, and Gloin says,

“But I’m not the second in line. There’s nearly a dozen before me. The line of Durin would be broken, and the royal family of the Ironhills, before I would become king.” Gloin shifts, his chair groaning, and then says, “There are only two of higher worth than you--Thorin and Fili. You were worth more than all your cousins together.”

“Not that--” Kili begins to say, but Gloin is holding up his hand.

“Thorin,” Gloin says, “could have bought a kingdom’s loyalty with your marriage, and you took that away from him.”

“What kingdom,” Kili tries to scoff, but he can feel uncertainty curling in his mouth. 

“What nation,” Gloin asks, “would not want an heir to Erebor? Even the elves would have considered your marriage.” Gloin looks around the room quickly, then toward the door, before he says, “Thorin would never have let you be married. He would’ve used you, that one last treasure to be desired. He would have paraded you through his court, used you to charm every nation that came.”

“Hardly,” Kili mutters. When Gloin chuckles, Kili glances at him, then looks away.

“He does it himself,” Gloin says in a low voice. He’s leaning close to Kili, and Kili can see the flash of Gloin’s teeth when he smiles ruefully. “Even if he wanted to, he’ll never marry. He’s worth more as he is, and he won’t risk losing that wealth.”

“So he takes it out on me,” Kili says, but it feels like an unfair judgement on Thorin. Kili’s seen the way Thorin looks at Dori sometimes, the awkward way Thorin lashes out when Thorin and Dori fight, and now it seems only pitiful and pitiable. It is like a slow bloom of understanding, for Kili to think about how Thorin seems so lonely at times, how Thorin nearly lives in Dis’s house, even though Thorin has his own home. It is like another of Thorin’s secrets, another piece of his political world, and Kili realizes, “He’s afraid.”

Gloin nods, then says, “He’s old. In fifty years, he’ll no longer be considered for marriage, and in another fifty, he’ll be dead. Fili’s meant for Dain’s niece, and what else does Thorin have? There are not very many left in your line.

“I imagine,” Gloin continues, “that every decision weighs heavily on Thorin. There’s not much room for mistakes.”

“Then it was a mistake?” Kili asks. “What I did?”

Gloin makes a noise that Kili cannot parse, and when Kili pushes, Gloin only says, “If you were anyone else, I doubt Thorin would have been half so forgiving.”

“He hasn’t forgiven me,” Kili says, more to himself than to Gloin. Gloin makes that noise again, then he points out,

“You know Thorin’s anger as well as I do, Kili, and you know what he would have done to anyone else.”

Kili clears his throat, then says, “I know.” 

Gloin must consider the conversation finished, because he turns away, scooting his chair closer to the table so he can look at his papers again. Kili lingers in the room for another awkward few minutes, then retreats back to his bed, where he pulls the covers up over his head.

That night, Kili lies beside Dwalin, turned onto his side so he can watch the slow shift of Dwalin’s shoulder and back as Dwalin falls asleep. Kili can see the thick jut of Dwalin’s shoulder blades even through Dwalin’s underclothes, and he wants to reach out and touch, to curve his fingertips along the blades where muscle and bone are as tough as stone.

“Dwalin,” he says instead, fisting his hands to keep from reaching out.

When Dwalin makes a sleepy grunt, Kili asks, “Will you forgive yourself? For what you did?”

Dwalin breathes in deeply, but he doesn’t say anything. After a few moments, Kili explains, “To Thorin, I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” Dwalin says, and his voice sounds gruff. Kili wonders what sort of face Dwalin is making, if Dwalin’s hands feel as cold as Kili’s. “Needing forgiveness,” Dwalin is saying, “means you’ve done something wrong.”

“Haven’t we?” Kili ask, and he’s not sure himself what he wants Dwalin to say. There are no easy answers anymore, and Kili is half-sick of thinking of what has happened.

Dwalin grunts, though, and rolls over. When Dwalin props himself up, leaning over Kili, Kili can see the glint of Dwalin’s eyes in the faint light of the room. Kili looks away; his face is beginning to feel hot, and his hands are still cold and numb. 

“You’re upset.”

“I’m not,” Kili says, but he doesn’t put any effort into it. The words feel dead, feel like they are rotting things dropping from his dull mouth. “It doesn’t matter.”

Dwalin shifts, and then his hand is resting atop Kili’s belly, heavy and warm through Kili’s thick shirt. Kili knows what will happen, because this is what Dwalin does now, when he deems Kili upset. This is how Dwalin pushes Kili’s shirt aside, how he unlaces Kili’s small clothes; how he presses his face against Kili’s, and how he rests his heavy weight across Kili’s body, until Kili feels like he can’t breathe.

Kili throws his arms over Dwalin’s shoulders, because that, he is sure, is what he’s meant to do. His hands dangle over Dwalin’s back, limp and cold, until Dwalin looks at him; then Kili moves his hands, plucking fitfully at Dwalin’s shirt, holding onto thin folds of fabric. Kili grows hard, and Kili gasps for breath. He feels his heart beat triple-time, and he bites back any sounds he wants to make, grinding down anything he wants to say.

And when it takes too long, when Kili feels sick with his apprehension, he asks, “Please?” and “Now?”

It is still a falling-stone feeling, like the exhausted collapsing of earth more than anything else. There is a taste of inevitability in it all. If he is stone, then he is faulty stone, shot through with lines, waiting to fracture. It is inevitability--and inevitability breeds pliancy.

When Dwalin asks, Kili murmurs against his mouth, “It was good,”

and when Dwalin kisses him back, Kili says, “Thank you,”

because those are all the things Kili is meant to say. He is meant to keep an arm slung over Dwalin’s neck, and to kiss Dwalin until Dwalin is rocking impatiently against him, and so he does all those things.

And when Kili asks, Dwalin answers, “Your hand.”

His body feels boneless--powerless--pliant and shattered--and he does what Dwalin asks: he presses one hand to Dwalin’s side and wraps the other around Dwalin’s sex, stroking awkwardly until Dwalin grabs Kili’s hand, fixing Kili’s grip, speeding Kili’s stroking until Dwalin is groaning.

Kili presses an open-mouthed kiss to Dwalin’s shoulder, mouths silent words against Dwalin’s skin. Dwalin’s groan breaks at that, and his hand tightens on Kili’s wrist.

“It’s good, Kili,” Dwalin pants into Kili’s ear, and Kili doesn’t know if it’s a compliment or a slap.

x

In the morning, Kili rises with Dwalin. They wash together, cold water and cold hands, and Dwalin helps Kili dress, holding out Kili’s shirt and vest, the leather belt. Dwalin touches Kili’s hair--always, unerringly, he reaches out to touch Kili’s hair, rubbing his thumb over the catch of Kili’s hair like he is smoothing something precious.

“Should I braid it?” Kili asks; he’s not sure if he’s teasing Dwalin or himself, or if he is searching for some kind of instruction. He feels so adrift, like he is lost in a world without air. The words, though, feel ungainly and awkward, like everything he feels anymore. 

“No,” Dwalin says in a thoughtless-sounding voice. He was still smoothing his thumb over the caught hair, but now he lets go of it, turning his hand away. “Have you left the house yet?”

It’s a stupid question, Kili thinks. Kili’s hardly left the bedroom the past week, and before that he’d hardly gone any further. If he had left the house, he thinks he might not have come back; he would have walked away, walked until he couldn’t walk anymore. He clears his throat, then says, “No, not yet.”

Dwalin nods, says, “Come with me, then.”

It is still early when they leave the house, early enough that they can hear snoring coming from most of the rooms of the upper floor. They stop in the downstairs kitchen just long enough to grab snatches of food, then they walk out the door.

It is so simple--so simple, to open the door and to walk out of the house. Kili can’t stop himself from turning to look back at the doorway, and at the house as a whole. He looks at the upstairs windows, the panes of glass frosted over with the morning cold, and he wonders which one is his bedroom, and which one is Thorin’s. Kili’s just decided on which window must be each when Dwalin says, “Come on, Kili.”

Dwalin’s patient, though. He waits quietly each time Kili stops to look at something, whether it is a bill pasted to a wall or a curiously carved doorway. Each time Kili has finished looking, Dwalin leads Kili around a corner and Kili finds himself looking at another half-dozen oddities.

Laketown seems to be laid out like a maze--or perhaps, more correctly, it has grown into a maze. The outer edges of the town feel fragile, made of little more than unsteady platforms that dip into the water when Kili and Dwalin walk over them. The houses on the outer edges are no better than the platforms; they are flimsy shacks, scavenged wood leant together and held together by what Kili thinks must be nothing more than luck and hope. The interior of the town is better; here the platforms are sturdy things, raised several feet out of the water, and the houses are made of wood and stone, solid constructs that look time-worn but strong. 

There are little braziers scattered through the town, most with carefully tending fires inside. All of the lit braziers have handfuls of men and women clustered around them: fishermen and lesser merchants, all rubbing shoulders as they try to edge closer to the warmth of the fire. The clusters of Men are as intriguing as the rest of the town. Kili cranes his neck as he and Dwalin pass each cluster of Men, and finally Kili asks, “Have you spoken with any?”

“The Men?” Dwalin asks, and he turns to look back at the same cluster of Men that Kili has been eyeing. “A few. This way,” he says, and he grips Kili’s elbow, leading Kili further through Laketown.

It’s long past noon before Kili finally returns to the house that has been lent to the Company. His face is flushed and his fingertips are cold, but he feels lighter than he has in days. That is how he runs into Thorin:

“Where were you?” Thorin asks when Kili walks in the door, and the shock of being addressed by Thorin is enough to drive Kili to a halt. Thorin scowls then, and he grabs Kili’s arm, dragging Kili out of the doorway and further into the house. 

“Out,” Kili says dumbly, and when Thorin’s scowl darkens, Kili says, “A hound had puppies. Dwalin took me to see them.”

Thorin looks over Kili’s shoulder, probably looking for Dwalin, and Kili adds, “He stayed behind to look through the market.”

“No one should go out alone,” Thorin says, but he seems to trust Dwalin more than he trusts Kili, because he makes no action to leave the house, or to even look down the street. Thorin shuts the door, then puts his hand on the back of Kili’s shoulder, pushing Kili gently in the direction of the stairs.

“Your brother hadn’t seen you,” Thorin says as Kili walks up the stairs, Thorin right behind him. “The Master of the town had oranges--fresh, just arrived from a southern city--and I brought them back.”

“Oranges?” Kili asks, and when he looks back, he sees Thorin lift his eyebrows at Kili.

“Oranges,” Thorin repeats. “You’ve never had oranges, not fresh ones. I used to eat them in Erebor, and I thought you would enjoy them.”

Thorin herds Kili down the hallway, and Kili goes along with him, still taken aback with Thorin speaking to him. They end up in Thorin’s room; Fili is already there, sitting on the bed with a book in his lap, and he looks up when Kili opens the door.

“He’s found you?” Fili asks, and when Thorin pushes into the room behind Kili, Fili grins brightly.

It’s a strange afternoon. It feels tense in all the wrong ways--Kili is terrified that he’ll manage to anger Thorin again, and Thorin seems just as uncertain, as though he’s afraid he’ll hurt Kili. Fili is brighter and louder than ever, like he can smooth over all the wrongs if he just tries hard enough. Still, they muddle through it: Thorin shows them how to peel the oranges, how to break the orange into sections. 

When Kili bites into a section, it bursts in his mouth, the juice bright and sweet and endless. He moans, then laughs in delight. “They’re sweeter,” he says, “than I expected--”

Thorin’s mouth grimaces, but he sounds pleased when he says, “Good.”

Fili eats his oranges quickly, but Kili tries to savor his share, eating them slowly and stingily. Thorin only eats a handful of sections, pulled equally from Fili and Kili’s shares. When Kili tries to push another piece onto Thorin, Thorin leans back, saying, “No, they’re for you. I’ve had more than my share.”

And, when Kili has eaten the last slice and is sucking the sticky juice off his thumb, Thorin says, “We’ll have plenty when we are in Erebor. There is always fruit from the south: fresh dates, figs, lemons--you’ve never had a lemon, have you? They’re sour,” he says, miming a pinched face as he speaks.

It’s a caulking over their cracks. Thorin gives Kili the barest of a smile, and Kili feels flushed from the overwhelming fear of breaking Thorin’s love again, but it is a beginning--it is some kind of mending. 

“He’s not as angry,” Fili whispers when Thorin has gone down ahead of them for dinner. “You can stop hiding in your room all the time.”

Kili grins at Fili and sways to the side, shoving his shoulder against Fili’s as they head down the hallway. “Have you missed me that much?” Kili asks, teasing.

“More than you can know,” Fili says, but his face is serious and his voice is low enough that it cracks. 

“Me, too,” Kili manages to say back, and he means it with every part of him. When Fili slings an arm over Kili’s shoulders, Kili leans close to his brother, into the warmth of his brother’s body.

x

They leave Laketown within a week. The last few days are a whirlwind of finishing preparations. For all that Thorin has forgiven him--maybe forgiven him--Kili rarely sees Thorin. It is like Thorin is always passing through a doorway, or turning around a corner ahead of Kili. The few times that they speak, it is usually in passing, Kili running up the stairs as Thorin slowly comes down them.

“Watch your step,” Thorin says, or: “Hurry, or you’ll be late for the meal.” Once: “There’s a coat for you. Dori wants to check the hems.”

The coat is a rich blue in color, heavy wool that is coarse and thick. Dori helps Kili pull it on, then clucks his tongue, telling Kili to turn this way and that as he eyes the hems.

“It’s a lovely color,” Kili remarks, because it is: darker than the blues Dis usually pulls out for Kili, and far more vibrant.

“It is,” Dori agrees as he leans in, checking the hem. “Turn--no, the other way, yes-- You were hiding in your room when the coats were made up, so Thorin chose yours. Same color for the both of you. Well,” Dori sighs as he sits back on his heels, “it’s not nearly so warm as what we left home with, but it’s better than nothing.”

Kili rubs the fabric between his fingers and asks, “They’re the same? His and mine?”

“Mostly. His might be a little longer.” Dori groans as he gets back onto his feet, waving off Kili’s offered hand. “I wish we had fur--that’s what we really need. Well, it’s the highest quality we can get here, on such short notice.”

Everything is the best to be had, at such short notice. The weapons are proportioned for men, but they’re sturdy, serviceable things; the clothes are the thickest that Dori’s managed to find, and there are new coats to take the place of the coats lost in Mirkwood. Even the food is good, for how quickly it was gathered: dried and smoked meats (though mostly fish), flat traveling breads, and savory balls of nuts and chopped meats, held together by fat. There is even a little cheese tucked away, though Kili is sure that it will be gone by the first day. In all, their provisions are highly serviceable, but hardly breathtaking.

“At least there’s meat this time,” Dwalin points out as they’re loading their supplies onto a boat.

“That’s a blessing for sure,” Bofur says, and he waggles his eyebrows at Kili in a pointed way. 

Bofur’s lightheartedness feels foreign after the past week. Kili lifts his eyebrows at Bofur, then rolls his eyes before turning away to help Fili. The lightheartedness seems to be spreading, though, because Fili’s standing with Ori, the both of them teasing Bilbo. It is like a pall is being taken away; maybe it is because Thorin had clapped Kili’s shoulder earlier in the morning, when all the Company had been gathering after breakfast. Maybe it is because they are finally leaving this town behind. Maybe it is because the mountain is closer than ever before, nearly close enough that Kili can reach out his hand and grasp it.

He says as much when their boat is pointed north and east, the Men of Laketown rowing across the still lake.

“Look,” Kili says, and he whispers it, has to whisper it, because it is like there is a magic being thrown over the world--magic full of promise and expectation. “It is so close--we are nearly there, Fili.”


	13. Chapter 13

The last distance to Erebor is a wasteland. Kili has never seen a place so desolate, and for all that there’s no snow, he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so cold before. He rides with his hands fisted in the long, shaggy hair of his pony, and he watches the lonely, empty horizon.

“What do you think?” he asks Fili as they ride together. Fili shrugs, then says, 

“It feels cold, in a way. Barren landscape?”

They spend their time riding at the end of the Company, leading the baggage ponies. From there, in the back, Kili can hear snatches of conversation: Gloin and Nori teasing Dori, Oin explaining something to Bombur. Bilbo is riding at the front of the line with Balin and Thorin, and while Kili can see them all bend their heads together, he can can hear little of what they’re saying.

Fragments of conversation and the wind curving through dry brush; it is a quiet, lonely land.

Whenever they stop, Dwalin unerringly finds his way to Kili’s side, and where a month before Kili would have been sharing his food and waterskin with Fili, he’s now sharing them with Dwalin. There’s nothing to find on the landscape, neither berries nor roots, but Dwalin always seems to have something tucked away in his packs, a piece of dried fruit or a bit of honey.

“I didn’t think we brought honey,” Kili says on their second day, when he’s licking a smear of honey from his thumb. Dwalin is sitting on the ground beside him, and it reminds Kili so much of the night months before, when Dwalin had saved that piece of bread from Bree. 

“Bought it in Laketown,” Dwalin tells him. When Kili turns to look at him, Dwalin breaks another piece of bread into halves, and dips a half into his little pot of honey before holding it out to Kili. 

“I didn’t think I’d want to eat honey again after the forest,” Kili says when they’ve finished eating. Dwalin chuckles at that, and Kili feels pleased. He leans to the side, just enough that he can bump his shoulder against Dwalin’s. 

They share waterskins, passing the skins back and forth between them; when Kili tires of sitting on the ground, he moves to the far side of the ponies, and Dwalin follows him. They kiss there, on the other side of the ponies. Dwalin tugs at Kili’s hair, then runs his fingers around the back of Kili’s neck. He is mostly gentle, but he still catches Kili’s hair; the pull pinches at Kili’s scalp, and it feels like cold water is running down Kili’s back.

When the Company continues on their way, Kili’s mouth feels swollen and bruised. The wind is quick to steal what warmth Kili has, and before long, Kili can’t remember the warmth of Dwalin’s skin, or anything but the cold dryness of his own throat. 

They have only small fires at night, and only for a short while; no one says it, but Kili’s certain that everyone is thinking of the dragon ahead, of what a fire may bring. It’s a reasonable fear, but it’s also a very cold fear--without a fire, the nights are brutally cold. It is enough that Kili is quick to lay out his bedding with Dwalin’s, their blankets piled together. Dwalin’s bulk is like a furnace, even in this cold, desolate place, and Kili squirms until he is pressed against Dwalin’s body from shoulder to knee, wrapped in Dwalin’s limbs.

If it is uncomfortable for Dwalin, he never makes a sound of complaint. He holds still, more like living stone than anything else, and when Kili tries to reposition Dwalin’s body, Dwalin is quietly pliant. Dwalin’s arm over Kili’s stomach and Kili’s leg between Dwalin’s: it is, Kili thinks, an inverse of their bed in Laketown, where they’d slept with a cold space between their bodies. Now Kili moves their bodies to his liking, until his cheek is pressed against Dwalin’s, their breath caught in each other’s hair.

(And when Dwalin grows hard against him, he doesn’t move, or grab, or pull; his breath is steady, and his hands are still, and his voice is silent. It is enough that Kili can stamp down the desire to crawl out of Dwalin’s bed.)

Their bed does not go unnoticed.

“It’s colder than an elvish tit,” Bofur mutters the next night, when the Company is clustered tight around the fire. There are a few scattered chuckles, and twice as many dark complaints echoing Bofur. 

Nori is sitting only two arm lengths away from Kili, with only Ori and Bifur between them; close enough that Kili hears when Nori says, “I wish I had someone to warm my bed.” 

“You’re only envious,” Bofur, and Kili thinks that maybe Bofur means to defend Kili, or to even warn Nori off; it has little effect.

“I might be,” Nori says, and then, in a louder voice:

“How long is this honeyed moon meant to last?” His voice is loud enough that the entire circle hears it. Kili feels himself begin to flush, and he finds himself looking not at Dwalin, but at Thorin. Thorin has a dark scowl on his face, and even though he’s scowling at Nori, Kili can’t keep from feeling cold in his stomach.

“As long as they wish it,” Dori is saying, just as Thorin says in a cold voice,

“I fail to see how that is any of your concern.”

When Kili manages to look away from Thorin, he finds that most of the Company is looking at him. He licks his lips, then says in a voice that, thank Mahal, is steady, “I’m going to check on the ponies.”

He’s certain he can feel everyone’s stares as he walks away from the fire. He doesn’t stop until he’s on the far side of the ponies. He pats one of the ponies on the neck--Bombur’s pony, he thinks; she’s a sweet thing, lazy and gentle, only sighing heavily as he scratches his fingers into her thick coat. He’s moved onto braiding her mane when Fili reaches him.

“You shouldn’t run away like that,” Fili says, and Kili scowls at nothing. Fili is standing on the other side of the pony, and he reaches across the pony’s back, grabbing and squeezing Kili’s wrist. “You know,” Fili says, “that Nori will just tease you more if he knows it makes you upset.”

It’s the same thing Dis always said when Kili was young, and Kili will listen to it from his mother, but he _won’t_ listen to it from his brother. He yanks his wrist away, breaking Fili’s hold on him, and says, “I know, Fili. I’m not a child.”

“That’s certain enough.” Fili’s voice is low and dry and when Kili looks at him, Fili lifts his eyebrows. It’s enough to make Kili deflate, to thump his head against the patient pony’s neck.

“You’re horrible,” Kili says quietly, and then a little louder: “I wasn’t running away from Nori.”

“Who, then?” Fili asks. When Kili busies himself with working on the pony’s braid, Fili pushes, asking, “Thorin?”

“It doesn’t matter--”

“Thorin,” Fili interrupts, “is lonely. At least,” his voice is a little unsure now, “I think he is. You don’t speak to him much anymore, you’re never near--”

“Only within shouting distance,” Kili shoots back. “All day, every day.”

“Stop being stupid. Everything’s changed now. You and Dwalin are always together now, whenever we stop for more than a few minutes. Thorin’s lost his nephew and his friend.”

Kili pinches the pony’s braid between his fingers and leans forward, resting his forehead against the pony’s neck. The pony’s hair is thick and prickly, and Kili rubs his face against it before he asks, “And you?”

“Me?” Fili asks back. “You still ride at the back with me--I can’t complain.”

When Kili makes a noise, feeling frustrated, Fili leans up and over the pony and says, 

“Of course I miss you, Kili.”

He stays with Kili as Kili finishes braiding the pony’s hair, and then they walk through the ponies together, checking the feedbags and the ponies’ hobbles. By the time they return to the Company, the others are picking out their places to sleep while Thorin organizes the watches for the night.

“Fili, you’ll sit the first watch with me,” Thorin says as the fire is banked. Fili throws Kili a pointed look and Kili sighs. Subtlety, he is sure, is not a strong trait in his family.

“I think,” Kili says in a low voice to Dwalin as he helps Dwalin spread out their blankets, “that I’ll sit Fili’s watch.” 

Dwalin looks up and across the campsite, then he nods, murmuring a low assent. Kili finishes laying out the bedrolls, then takes the bag that Dwalin passes him. He folds the bag the best he can, then sets it on his side of the blankets for a pillow. 

“Go on, then,” Dwalin says, and when Kili hesitates, Dwalin nudges him with his foot until Kili sighs and drags himself up to his feet. 

Thorin is sitting on the far side of the camp, facing east and north, toward the looming shadow of the mountain. Kili picks his way through the campsite, careful to avoid stepping on anyone’s hands or feet. When he’s reached the edge of the camp, he sidles up to Thorin and, when Thorin lifts his eyebrows, sits as close as he dares.

“I thought,” Kili begins, but the words feel wrong. He stops, then tries again: “If I may--only,” he says, and now the words burst out of his mouth, nearly faster than he can say them, “I’ve missed you.”

Thorin takes in a sharp breath and Kili looks away, digging his fingers into the dry earth to keep himself from rising and leaving.

At last, when Kili’s palms are cold and damp from sweat, Thorin says, “I’d be happy if you sat with me, Kili.”

Thorin’s voice is gentle and his hand, when he reaches out to touch Kili’s face, is even more gentle. Kili has to swallow the thick feeling in his throat, but that doesn’t stop the shudder than runs through him, from the base of his skull through the length of his sternum. It doesn’t escape him that when Thorin passes his thumb over Kili’s cheek that he is touching the cut his ring gave Kili. The scabs fell off days ago, but the cut is still red and tender, and no matter how gentle Thorin is, it still hurts.

“Are you cold?” Thorin asks, and Kili says yes, because he can still feel a shudder running through his chest.

Thorin has a blanket thrown over him like a cloak, and he lifts a side of it, holding it up until Kili scoots across the ground. Thorin’s furs are gone, as is his mail; when Kili leans against Thorin’s side, it feels foreign and unfamiliar. Smaller, maybe; gentler, certainly. They busy themselves with fixing the blanket around them both, Thorin saying, “Here, that’s half--pull it around, Kili.”

Then, when they are sitting side-by-side, wrapped in the same blanket, they fall silent again.

Kili can feel the movement of each of Thorin’s breaths. That is all he can feel. Thorin’s a lesson in stillness and in silence, just as much as Dwalin. Kili can’t stop himself from fidgeting, picking at the edge of the blanket with his thumbnail until the weave is growing loose. When Thorin leans forward, Kili feels an anxious expectation fall over him.

“Is he good to you?” Thorin asks, and there can be no question what Thorin is asking. Kili says,

“Yes.”

“Is he kind?”

Kili hesitates too long and Thorin’s face takes on a pinched, sour look. When Thorin casts a glance back toward the sleepers, Kili reaches out, tugging at Thorin’s sleeve.

“He is,” Kili says, fervent or desperate or both. It feels like the words are burning through his mouth, through his skin in embarrassment. “It’s not--it’s only the teasing, that’s all. It’s not him.”

Thorin’s face goes a little slack, losing its pinched look. He twists his arm, taking his sleeve out of Kili’s grasp, but then he catches Kili’s hand, pats it gently and slowly. 

“I,” Thorin says, but then he falls silent. His hand stops its patting, and instead rests on top of Kili’s, large and warm and heavy. When Thorin does speak, he says, “Your mother married very young. Younger than you.”

“I know,” Kili says, but Thorin goes on, saying:

“I made her. We needed help. We had no home, no wealth--just a scattered people.” Thorin clears his throat loudly, then says in a softer voice, “I asked her, afterwards, if she was happy.”

And Kili asks, “Was she?”

“She was. She is, I think.”

It’s a different lesson than the one Dis taught Kili--not wildly so, but a little bit, like Dis and Thorin started at the same point, but they each turned a little away, and now they are looking at the world from different degrees. Kili offers,

“She doesn’t love him. Mother, I mean--she doesn’t love Father.”

“Doesn’t she?” Thorin straightens up, then slowly slumps, like a weight is being poured onto his shoulders. “What of you and Dwalin?” Thorin asks, and Kili tells the truth:

“I don’t know. I don’t know what the difference is, or where the--the _lines_ are.” Kili twists his fingers together. He can’t explain his frustration, how he feels a avalanche of feelings to which he can’t put words. He twists his fingers tighter, until it’s painful, and he asks, “Does it matter?”

Thorin makes a soft sound, but he doesn’t answer, neither yes nor no. His hand, still heavy on Kili’s, pats once more before Thorin withdraws it, drawing away.

“We’ll be useful,” Kili offers. He digs a thumbnail into the knuckle of his first finger, then scrapes his nail up the length of his finger. “I promise. Dwalin and I--”

“I know,” Thorin interrupts, and he throws an arm around Kili’s shoulder, dragging Kili close enough that he can kiss the top of Kili’s head. Thorin’s lips are flat and rough, and his arm is too tight around Kili’s shoulder; Kili never wants to move away. “I know,” Thorin says even softer, and Kili gives himself a selfish moment, letting himself lean all his weight against Thorin’s chest.

Then Thorin is pushing Kili away and saying, “Go to bed, Kili. I’ll finish the watch myself.”

Dwalin is asleep when Kili crawls into the bedroll next to him. The blankets are warm from the heat of Dwalin’s body, and Kili’s body is cold. He yanks the blankets up over his shoulders, then squirms until he’s pressed against Dwalin’s back, his forehead tucked against the space between Dwalin’s shoulder blades.

x

It is days before they find the entrance to Erebor, and the days are all firmly divided. The daylight hours are spent clambering over the mountainside with Fili and Bilbo, searching for the hidden door. All the Company is scattered over the mountainside, and Kili only sees glimpses of the others, distant figures standing on low ridges. Sometimes he tries to puzzle out which figure is which dwarf; Bombur is easy to pick out, as is Dwalin. The one he looks for the most, though, is Thorin. It feels like a needy something in his chest, causing him to squint and shade his eyes from the late autumn sun, trying to decide if he can see Thorin or not.

Most of the time, though, he scrambles over the rock with Bilbo and Fili, talking like he doesn’t know how to stop. Bilbo is flatteringly interested in everything Fili and Kili say, and Kili is more than happy to talk until Bilbo tells him to stop. (He never does.)

Bilbo’s questions are all politic, and ordinary enough that he steps upon no toes: What sorts of holidays do dwarves have? And how to they celebrate birthdays? Oh, hasn’t Bilbo told them about hobbit birthdays? He’ll tell them now, about the time that Otho--yes, the cousin he’d mentioned the day before--left with half a pig, and without a single thank you.

None of it is particularly thrilling. Perhaps that is why Kili is so at ease. It is simple to fall into a sort of daze when he is climbing all over the mountain, listening to Bilbo’s stream of chatter, and answering himself; holding his tongue when he’s too far away to hear Bilbo or Fili, when all he can hear is his own breath and the quietness of the mountain and the sun and the wide, open sky. Day after day, all those sunburnt hours.

The nights, though, are awkwardly split between Dwalin and Thorin. Fili spends some hours sitting with Thorin, nearly all of their watches taken together. Thorin speaks little, and Kili speaks even less, and most of the watches end with Thorin sending Kili to his bed early. Kili cannot decide if it’s kindness or frustration on Thorin’s part, or perhaps a little of both. The rest of his hours are spent with Dwalin: sitting beside Dwalin as they eat their meals and sleeping pressed up against the broad warmth of Dwalin’s back; quiet, awkward fumblings a hundred or so yards beyond the cleft they’ve made into their camp.

“Shh,” Dwalin whispers, and Kili bites his hand to muffle his sounds. Out here, past the steep walls of the cleft, the world seems a great distance. Kili cannot see the edge of the horizon--his eyes are dwarvish, and the horizon is an indistinct blur of earth and sky, as though someone took a handful of sand and poured it over the edges. The stars, though--no matter how small the stars, they are bright, and his eyes pick out the brightness, like a hundred thousand beacons scattered in the sky. 

The stars pulse in time with his blood, magnify with each beat of his heart. When Dwalin murmurs his name, Kili throws an arm over Dwalin’s shoulder, then tucks his face in against Dwalin’s shirt, so he cannot see the pulsing stars.

They never stay away from the camp for long--only long enough for Kili to find his release, and sometimes for Dwalin to find his, too. They creep their way back to the camp through the dark, with only the light of the stars and the moon, if the moon is at a height for it. Dwalin leads the way each time, and Kili follows behind him. (He feels like a dog at times, being led by a rope around his neck, following at Dwalin’s heels like a hound slinking after its master.)

There are no more fires, not while they are on the footsteps of Erebor, in the shadow of the dragon. Everything is cold: their food and their water, their beds and their bodies. Kili sweats when he climbs over Erebor and when he fucks Dwalin, but afterwards, when he is done and he is still, his sweat grows cold, chilling his body until he shivers. The wind is always the coldest then, always finding an inch of skin where Kili is bare--his wrists where his sleeves have pulled up, or his belly from where Dwalin has pulled his trousers slack. The wind feels as unerring as Dwalin’s fingers, and maybe--

It is, in all, a cold time, both day and night, and as each passes, Kili begins to wonder if they will ever find their way into the mountain.

When they do find the hidden door, it is thanks to their hobbit. It’s still early in the day, before noon, and Kili has been searching an eastern shoulder for most of the morning, always within shouting distance of Fili and Bilbo. It is slow-going, as it always is, and Kili is scowling at the rock face of the mountain when he hears Fili’s whoop. When he reaches them, clambering over sliding rock, Fili has an arm slung around Bilbo’s shoulders, and they are both facing the mountain.

“What is it?” Kili asks, and Fili says,

“Bilbo’s found it--look, up there, see the steps?”

Bilbo’s not nearly so heavy as Fili, so it takes no effort at all for Kili to grab Bilbo and lift him. “The greatest burglar--you’ve saved us again! Thank Mahal for you, Bilbo!”

Bilbo makes a startled grunting sound, then says in a breathless voice, “You can put me down, Kili--you’re welcome, you’re welcome, of course. I just thought that the rocks looked a little strange, that’s all.”

Kili swings Bilbo around once more, because he can, and Bilbo groans in complaint. When Kili has let go of Bilbo, Bilbo staggers a few steps away, tugging at his coat and mumbling, “It really wasn’t much--though I am invested in this venture, I know it’s not so much as you--”

Bilbo stops speaking abruptly, but he looks pleased with himself, and with Kili and Fili, too. It’s with that pleased look of his that he turns back toward the mountain, pointing upward and saying, “It looks like it goes to the left, doesn’t it?”

They can only pick out pieces of the staircase, odd shadows on the mountainside and breaks in the mountain’s surface. They argue over the direction of the staircase, the places it turns and the places it disappears, until they are squinting at the heights of the mountain.

“Is that?” Bilbo asks doubtfully, pointing to the far right, and Kili says, 

“Isn’t that too far right?”

“I think it’s too far away for us to tell,” Bilbo finally decides, and that is all the excuse that Kili needs.

“Let’s go up, then,” Kili says, and he grins at Fili when Fili punches his shoulder. He feels wild with excitement and breathless with anticipation. Bilbo, though, seems less than excited.

“Are you certain?” Bilbo asks, and he’s tilting his head back, looking up at the steep mountainside and the narrow staircase. His face is taking on a rather pinched look, and he sounds hesitant as he says, “Only, it seems rather--narrow, don’t you think? And what if we turn the wrong way?”

Kili thumps Bilbo on his back, says, “You can stay down here. That’s better, really--you can shout at us if we look like we’ve gone the wrong way, and you can tell Thorin and the others that we’ve gone ahead to see if the staircase is still standing.”

“If that’d be best,” Bilbo says slowly. He takes a half-dozen steps back from the side of the mountain and shades his eyes, then says, “Well, go ahead then, I suppose. Be careful,” he adds as Fili takes the lead, and Kili waves at Bilbo before he begins to follow Fili up the face of the mountain.

The staircase is a narrow, crumbling thing, the steps worn smooth by more than a century of forgetfulness and lonely wind. They lose their way more than once, sent scrambling over the mountain face as they try to find next dozen steps carved into the mountain. Bilbo’s voice grows smaller and smaller, a tiny thing that bounces on the rock walls around Fili and Kili, offering directions that quickly grow impatient and bossy.

“No, to the _right_ \--” and “It’s above you--straight above you, look _up_ \--” and “Oh, help me, are you lost again?!”

“He’s very bossy,” Kili pants as he leans his forehead against a rock that has been worn smooth. Fili’s chuckle sounds as breathless as Kili feels, and Fili says, 

“He’s a bit like Dori, I think. I hope it’s easier to climb down. If not, I might just jump.”

They stumble onto the ledge not longer after, much to Kili’s gratitude. The ledge cuts deep into the mountainside, tucked back and around a shoulder of the mountain. It’s cunningly hidden, if it is dwarf-made; if it’s nature-made, then it is even more cunningly made. Kili shoves Fili further onto the ledge, then takes four long steps in and drops to the ground, sprawling with his arms and legs thrown wide.

“Thank Mahal,” he mutters against the ground, and he can hear Fili call back down to Bilbo. When Fili nudges Kili with a foot, Kili groans, then says, “My fingers hurt.”

“You should come see,” Fili says, seeming very unconcerned with the state of Kili’s fingers. “The path is far more clear from this side. I think even Bombur could climb it, if he was pressed.”

Fili nudges at Kili’s side again and Kili grumbles, rolling onto his back. “I’m coming,” he complains, and when Fili nudges once more, Kili tries to smack Fili’s foot, missing by several inches. 

“Lazy.” Fili is smiling widely, though, and he turns and moves back to the edge of the ledge. Kili lies on his back, looking up at the sliver of sky above him as he listens to Fili shout back down to Bilbo.

When he finally joins Fili at the edge, Fili is sitting with his legs hanging over the edge. Kili spares a glance downwards: they are high enough that Bilbo is hardly distinguishable. It is a dozen times the fall necessary to kill a dwarf, were one to fall--or to jump. Kili blinks, then drags the ball of his foot along the edge, sending a flurry of dirt and pebbles down to the depths of the cleft below.

“Sit down,” Fili complains, “before you fall.”

Kili sits with a whuff of breath, kicking his legs out over the edge. “It’s nice,” he offers, and Fili hums his agreement. 

The ledge is tucked away deep into a crevice of the mountain, protected on three sides. The cold wind that that has been dragging at Kili’s body for days now is little more than an echoing whistle come from far below. If Kili leans out, he can see past the shoulder of the mountain that hems in the ledge. The world, beyond, is small and flat and empty. The horizon is hazy, unbroken by mountains or anything else. Kili wonders, should he be facing south and west, if he would see the lake in the distance, or if that, too, would be too small to be picked out from the empty, silent wasteland.

“I think I understand,” he says when he has leaned back onto his hands, turning his face away from the world beyond the mountain, “why it is called the Lonely Mountain.”

They sit quietly for a long time. Fili tosses a few pebbles, aiming for the far mountain face; Kili lies on his back, his feet dangling into the empty air beyond the ledge. It feels a little weightless, perhaps--to know that, if he let himself, he could fall from the ledge with the same ease as a pebble. He thinks of the stone giants in the Misty Mountains, and the way his stomach had plummeted when the floor had given way in the cavern; he imagines a giant rising from Erebor, something nearly as tall as the mountain itself--scooping him up in its craggy hand and casting him back into the wastelands. 

When the Company’s voices come, they are as small as Bilbo’s. Kili lifts himself so he can peer over the edge with Fili: far below, just beyond the shoulder of the mountain, he can see the little figures of the others. One is waving his arms towards the mountain and, more or less, towards Fili and Kili. Kili thinks it might be Bifur.

“Think they’re headed up?” Kili asks, and Fili says beside him,

“Looks like it.”

The Company is milling below, then splitting in near halves; Kili counts four--no, five--moving towards the crag where Fili and Kili had begun their climb. He’s certain that one of the figures is Thorin--it’s harder to pick Thorin out without his great fur mantle, but the coat looks very blue. One is certainly Bilbo--he’s small enough, compared to the others. Dori, maybe, and Gloin beside him; the fifth is the same that had been waving his arms at the mountain, and Kili is more certain that it is Bifur. 

“This should be amusing,” Fili says, and when Kili looks over, Fili gives him a toothy smile. 

“Maybe,” Kili hedges, and Fili wraps his arm around Kili’s waist, tugging until Kili sighs and lets Fili rock them both back and forth. 

“Why,” Kili asks, “are you so happy?”

Fili laughs, sounding as young as a child as he says, “Because this time we get to shout the directions.”

x

Against all odds, they are not eaten by a dragon. Nor are they burnt alive, or even buried in a rockfall. It feels like it is hours before Kili’s heart slows down, and even longer before unexpected sounds no longer have him scrambling out of the torchlight. 

But against all odds, they’re not killed by Smaug’s wrath, and against all odds, they have found their way into Erebor.

It is what his mother had always told him: long hallways and deep ceilings, staircases that climb to the very roof of the mountain. Their torchlight only illuminates pieces of Erebor, like fragments of a page, and Kili has never felt so small.

“It’s beautiful,” Bilbo murmurs, and Balin says,

“It is the greatest kingdom of our people.”

Their voices are small--little things that are lost in the overwhelming quietness of the mountain. It is a tomb, perhaps--or perhaps, more rightly, it is a sacred place, something dreamt of and yearned for and fought over.

“It is our home,” Thorin whispers when he has pulled Kili and Fili close. “It is the seat of our family.”

It is everything Dis had promised, and more besides. It is a labyrinth of staircases and walkways and plummeting depths. It is gates ten times the height of any dwarf and passageways half the height of any child. It is immensity, from the very air to the very rock.

Kili never wants to leave.

The halls are cold and dark, but the guardroom they have taken over is warm and well-lit with torches and braziers. Their voices echo, and their shadows spread, and their lights glint, and Kili thinks that, in time, Erebor will be a beautiful place again.

“It will be lovely,” he says, and Fili asks,

“Isn’t it already?”

And that, Kili thinks, is the entirety of Erebor. Erebor is promise. Erebor is everything that has been promised to him, and it is everything that he wants to promise in return. Erebor is their chance to right their wrongs, and heal their wounds, and rebuild their kingdom of orphans.

He kisses Dwalin in a dark corner outside the guardroom: Dwalin’s face, and Dwalin’s chin; his fingertips and the pulse at his wrist and the hollow of his throat. Kili kisses his promises into Dwalin’s skin, and traces his chances onto Dwalin’s body. Everything, he knows, can be fixed, because if a Company of thirteen dwarves and one hobbit can reclaim a mountain, then there is nothing that he cannot do.

“We’ve made it,” Kili says when Dwalin cups his face, cradling Kili like Kili is something precious. 

“Aye, laddie,” Dwalin says, and he slips his hands back into Kili’s hair, his fingers circling the back of Kili’s neck. “That we have.”

x

That is when the armies come.

x

Erebor is promise, but promises have never meant much at all. Kili broke his promise, and Thorin’s, too; shattered everything Dis had told him to keep safe.

It is, he thinks, profoundly unfair.

(And he is frightened. His hands are shaking and he can’t stop the quivering in the base of his skull. He feels cold and numb all over, like he’s been left for dead in the wasteland outside Erebor.)

“We’re doomed to failure,” Kili whispers when Fili has bent down next to him. There are dozens of arrows lying in front of him, all beautifully fashioned of metal, and all taken from the treasure of Erebor. Kili cannot decide how many arrows he needs--enough that he will not run out, but not so many that his quiver is unwieldy. (He doesn’t know how many he will manage to shoot, before they are all slaughtered before the gates of Erebor.)

“We’ve been doomed to failure before,” Fili points out. He touches an arrow, then touches Kili’s knee. “We’ll survive, the both of us. We’ve taken the mountain, and we will hold it.”

“And Thorin,” Kili adds, and Fili echoes,

“And Thorin.”

“None of us will die,” Kili says, and Fili echoes,

“None of us.”

Kili thinks that perhaps he has never been as grateful as he should, that Fili is his elder brother. Fili has always known too well how to make Kili blind with rage--but Fili always seems to know just as well when Kili is overwhelmed, and right now, Kili feels as though he is being buried alive, crushed little by little.

“Kili,” Fili says, and he’s grasping at both of Kili’s knees, and he’s ducking his head so that he is looking up at Kili. “I promise you, we will survive this.”

(But Kili knows exactly what promises mean. He knows how easy they are made, and how easily they are broken; he knows that every promise in his life has been broken, as easy as a kiss.)

“Alright,” Kili says, because even if he doesn’t believe it, he doesn’t think he could stand listening to Fili try to convince him--and because maybe this is the best way to protect Fili, because Kili thinks that Fili might still believe in promises, and in all the things that Fili has been promised. (And maybe if Fili believes that he can survive this--if Fili believes that his life will be what Thorin and Dis always said--)

Fili looks at Kili’s face so very intently, as though he’s searching for something. Whatever it is, he finds it, perhaps, because he makes a sharp nod and then grabs Kili’s shoulders, gripping him tight. Maybe the look in his eyes is fanaticism. (Kili can only feel fatalism.) When Fili speaks, his voice is so very fierce: “We will survive this.”

Kili holds his tongue, nods his head instead. Fili’s frown deepens, and he says, “Stay close to me, Kili.”

“I will,” Kili says, “You know I will.”

Fili squeezes Kili’s shoulders again, hard enough that Kili thinks he might have bruises tonight. If there is a tonight. Kili grasps back, wrapping his hands around Fili’s wrists, holding on nearly as tight. Fili looks as though he wants to say more, but Kili isn’t sure there is more to say. At this point, Kili thinks, anything more would only be useless repetition, words a little less powerful each time they are said.

“You should help Thorin,” Kili offers, and when Fili asks, 

“And you?”

Kili says, “I still have my arrows to pick. Go on, I’ll catch you up.”

He watches Fili walk away--the lonely back of Fili’s shoulders, and the gold and amber color of Fili’s hair. He’d be a magnificent king, if--

“Will,” Kili says to himself, and he touches the arrows laid out before him, wondering how many he can carry, and how many he can shoot.

He has chosen his arrows and is dressing in his armor when he is found by Dwalin. 

“Yes,” Dwalin says suddenly, and Kili looks up from adjusting his bracer. Dwalin’s covered in dwarvish armor of mithril and gold, his armor nearly as beautiful as Thorin’s, and Kili feels something pull tight through his chest.

“Yes, what?” he asks back, taking a step back so he can look at Dwalin properly. Dwalin’s belt is a little crooked and Kili’s chest is still pulling tight, so he reaches out and adjusts it.

“Yes. I love you,” Dwalin says, and Kili’s fingers go cold and numb where they’re touching Dwalin’s beautiful belt. “More than Thorin,” Dwalin continues, and he’s putting his hands around Kili’s head, his thumbs under Kili’s ears, his fingers digging into Kili’s hair. “I love you more than I love my king.”

The tears were burnt out of Kili years ago, when he was smaller and fairer than he is now, but he wishes he could cry for them both, just for a moment. He settles for dragging his hands up the heavy chain Dwalin is wearing, his fingers tracing the links and curves, searching for any weakness, cracks in the chain. He can find none.

He thinks Dwalin may be lying, but if he is, Kili never wants to know it.

Dwalin leans forward, resting his forehead against Kili’s, and Kili realizes that they are almost of a height. Kili turns his head, pressing his cheek against Dwalin’s, and he feels Dwalin’s mouth press against the hair behind Kili’s ear.

“You’re a fine prince,” Dwalin says gruffly into Kili’s hair, “and a finer dwarf.”

It’s painful when Kili laughs, feels like glass in his throat, and his fingers spasm, clutching tight at Dwalin’s arms. “Liar,” Kili accuses, but he makes his fingers loosen, tries to smooth down the fur coat Dwalin is wearing over his gold and mithril chain. 

“Kili,” Dwalin says, always so serious, always trying to protect Kili from Kili himself, and Kili sets his hands against Dwalin’s chest, pushes him back a pace.

“No,” he says, as sternly as he can. “I don’t want to know.” He tries to smile at Dwalin and he is certain that he fails. “It’s a battle, Mister Dwalin,” he says. “Who knows what things will change.”

x

His heart is thudding like a jackrabbit and his fingertips are cold. The world is spinning around him, tilting underneath his body, and he tries to dig his fingers into the earth, hold himself still on the ground. 

He wishes he had walked through the halls of Erebor with Dwalin, that he’d taken the time to watch light reflect off the diamonds and emeralds and sapphires set so cunningly into the walls, the pillars covered in carved beasts and ancient blessings. He wishes he had been able to see Thorin sit upon the throne under Erebor, as firm and unmoving as the earth itself. He wishes, he wishes, he wishes.

The world tilts beneath him, slipping from between his fingers, and he wishes he could have been the prince Erebor had deserved.


	14. Epilogue

When Kili wakes, the roar of battle is gone. All he can hear is his own breathing, wet and faint. The sky above him is gone, replaced with high arches of stone, and he can feel his body sinking into the softness of a bed. He breathes, gasping for breath, and the pain consumes him.

When he wakes again, everything is same. The room in which he is lying is eerily quiet, like a crypt, and the arches of the ceiling seem to never stop rising. He stares up at the ceiling, struggling for each breath, and it takes him a long time to realize that someone is speaking. He doesn’t know who it is, though, or even what they are saying, and before he can puzzle out either, he’s fading away.

He wakes and sleeps, wakes and sleeps. The arches are always there, flying up from his bed, further than he can see, and he stares at them, wonders if he can follow them. He’s too tired to turn his head and search for the voices that are always whispering, whispering, whispering, but he listens to them, to the rise and fall of sound in the room. It takes him a long time, but eventually he notices the echoes of sound, the way the whispers bounce from the walls to the arches, from the arches to the floor. He must be in a big room, then--fit for a king, or for the heir of a king.

Between one sleep and another, he wakes and turns his head. The pillow is cool beneath his cheek, so very soft, and it’s comforting in his pain. He doesn’t dare move the rest of his body; his body is all pain, like fire and poison and sharp, wicked hooks digging into his flesh. His head, too, aches, but his cheek feels cool and comfortable where it’s touching the pillow. He closes his eyes, opens them. He abruptly misses the arches above his bed, because here, instead of the arches, is a Dwalin he does not know.

Dwalin is dressed in heavy brocade, dark purple silk covered in embroidery of gold and blue and black, and beneath the brocade Kili can see the glimmer of black armor. Mourning clothes, then, and Kili wants to ask who it was, Thorin or Fili.

“Hush,” Dwalin murmurs, so very low, and he kisses Kili’s cheek, the one not resting on the pillow. “Hush,” Dwalin says, over and over, like a strange lullaby, until Kili falls back asleep.

Kili’s body is ruined beyond repair, like a glass doll shattered over stone. He was pierced by too many weapons, broken by too many shields, and so he’s left lying in a bed, watching the strength seep away from his limbs. His hands are gnarled, ugly things, like an old dwarf’s, his knuckles swollen and broken, his fingers weak and crabbed. Sometimes, when Dwalin comes to sit by his side, he holds Dwalin’s hand, but only when the pain is not too great.

Dwalin doesn’t come often. Oin, who always seems to be there, watching Dain’s healers with a critical and suspicious eye, tells Kili it is because Dwalin and Balin are protecting Kili’s interests.

“Thorin and Fili,” Oin says gently, and Kili feels what was left of his world break apart. Oin is very gentle with Kili, lifting Kili’s hands to check the color of Kili’s fingernails, smelling the wounds on Kili’s legs to check for rot, resting his head on Kili’s chest to listen to the struggle of Kili’s breaths.

“You’ll live,” Oin says, which isn’t so gentle, but then Oin whispers, when Dain’s healers have left, “You are all that’s left. They wanted a throne, and now they have to wait for you to die.”

Kili lies in his bed, staring up at the arches, and wonders which will kill him first, his breaking heart or his breaking body.

x

Dain isn’t a cruel dwarf, but he is pragmatic. For all the wealth of the Iron Hills, it is nothing compared to the wealth of Erebor, and the wealth of Erebor is under the pitiful protection of a crippled king.

He comes to see Kili, and the healers prop Kili’s body upon pillows, wrap heavy furs around Kili’s frail body. Dain looks at Kili critically, then says, “They say you will live.”

“I will live,” Kili repeats, because he will. He doesn’t want to--there is nothing for him anymore, the foundations of his world shattered beyond mending, but Erebor needs him, Thorin’s Company needs him, and the ravens have said that Dis is travelling through the northern passes. Kili won’t make his mother mourn at three tombs, not this winter.

Dain nods sharply. His face is as stern as Thorin’s was, his eyes even quicker and more calculating. He is a cunning dwarf and a good king. 

“Durin’s Line will need heirs,” Dain says, when he has seen his fill of Kili and seems to be convinced. “Your brother was to marry my niece. She is fit to be a queen of Erebor.”

Months ago, Kili was able to talk and tease and laugh and lie with the ease of a summer’s day; now, each word is painful and slow, as gnarled and broken as the rest of his body. He says, haltingly, “If I could, Dain, but my bed has already been taken.”

Dain neither pries, nor criticizes; he says, “Dwalin’s brother protects your interests well,” then asks, “Was it formalized?”

“No,” Kili says, thinking of Laketown and Thorin’s terrifying rage, the bed that Kili and Dwalin had slept in together, “but it is done now.”

Something in Dain’s face bends, a softening or weakening, and he sits on the edge of Kili’s bed, closer than politics allow. He picks up Kili’s hand and holds it gently between his own, a cousin rather than a king. 

“Durin’s Line will end,” Dain says, mourning something that had once been as firm and steady as the earth itself. Faulty lines breed faulty rocks, and earth eventually crumbles, and sometimes there is nothing left for the throne but a remnant-king, as broken and worn as a battered toy.

“It was,” Kili says, the truth haunting him like the dead haunt the living, “my greatest mistake.”

x

“My king,” Dwalin calls him; never _Kili_ , never _laddie_ , never _boy_. “My king, my king,” and there is a distance between them, filled with mourning clothes and dying lines and a marriage bed grown cold. 

Kili doesn’t call Dwalin anything. He loves and hates Dwalin in equal measure, wishes that Dwalin had died so that Thorin could have lived, that Kili had died so that Fili could have lived. He wishes he could lie upon Dwalin’s body again, his fingers sinking into the depths of Dwalin’s beard, his mouth whispering secrets to Dwalin’s scars, but none of Kili’s secrets are secrets anymore. The world knows that Kili broke the Line of Durin with the folly of youth, made stupid by passion and longing and the jealous rage of dwarvish love.

“My king,” Dwalin says so lowly, mourning something lost, and Kili mourns it with him, because everything is lost; Erebor is lost, the mountain already a widow, her king only lingering on like a shade.

(Kili has lost his happiness, his uncle and his brother and the love he thought he had won. All he has gained is a crown and the bitter taste of guilt and regret.)

Kili sits upon the throne of Thror, and the throne of Thrain, and the throne of Thorin. He is King Under the Mountain, and the last of Durin’s Line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. It took a long time to finish the fic, but I'm glad I did--it's the longest fic I've written _and_ finished, and that is because of the support and interest I received from everyone. So thank you!
> 
> There are still some fics I want to write (and finish) for the Kingdom series, so there is that.... But for now, I'm going to take a break and step away, and do some other things. 
> 
> But I just wanted to thank everyone who read and enjoyed the fic. Thank you!


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